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BioShock Movie To Be Made By Universal
azuredrake writes "Gamasutra reports that Universal Pictures has just announced a completion of licensing negotiations to bring the game BioShock to the silver screen. For those unfamiliar with the property, it was the much-lauded Game of the Year contender, praised for its storyline which emerged through gameplay, not just cutscenes. The director for the project is to be Gore Verbinski, who proved himself on the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, and the current writer for the screenplay is John Logan, who is recently known for the also-creepy Sweeny Todd."
The director for the project is to be Gore Verbinski, who proved himself on the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy
Proved himself what?
I mean, did you sit through the last one?
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
The story needs to be about the fall of Rapture, not what occurs in game, because that will turn out to be shit. Also it shouldn't be called BioShock. Something like 'Rapture' springs to mind.
You'll need a top of the range HDTV and Bluray player to watch this movie, which will not work on 10% of the world's Bluray players because it includes a poorly-designed additional copy protection scheme on top of the usual Bluray DRM. The disc requires online activation before it will play, and you'll be limited to five activations, so you can use each disc in no more than five Bluray players. The good news is that the trailer will also be protected by the same scheme, so you will be able to check your equipment for compatibility before you buy.
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
...in the role of a Little Sister.
He pulls off effeminate pretty well.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
It means that the gameplay was the important story element in Bioshock.
Which is why the film will suck.
A key underlying theme in Bioshock is the illusion of choice--sort of a meta-commentary on gaming itself as a medium. (*Spoiler warning*) The player is placed in a broad, seemingly very open environment, invited to make choices as he participates in the story. The twist in the plot is where you find out you're really NOT a participant at all, but an automaton performing as you are expected to by outside actors. I really thought this was a rather clever response to Ebert's principal argument against "games as art"--that games as an interactive medium lack authorial control. The Bioshock authors used the interactivity to demonstrate why authorial control is paramount to the way games tell stories.
There's no way to convey this through a film. The passive viewer loses the sense of interactivity and participation that made the game philosophically compelling. I'm sure the movie will look pretty, and I'm sure they'll spend a lot of money on it. I'm also sure it won't be able to add anything to what the game already accomplished.
Universal already did this once with the rights to a Halo movie. Then they backed out of funding when the time came to cut a check for pre-production... and that was with a HUGE franchise that was a sure thing.
When you go to the theater, you will meet an obnoxious minimum wage drone who will charge you $15 for a movie and take 25 minutes to enter the transaction while you miss the opening scene.
You can...
(1) Harvest the clerk, and get into the movie for free along with unlimited popcorn.
or
(2) Save the clerk, teaching him how to operate a register. You'll still have to pay a bit to get in, but at least you helped the world a bit and the clerk might hook you up with some presents later.