‘BioShock’ Movie Update Finally Surfaces After 3 Years of Delays [Exclusive]

Video game movies and television series are continuing to thrive of late, yet one that has continued to struggle to get off the ground has been BioShock. As far back as the 2010s, Hollywood showed some interest in visiting the underwater city of Rapture, with Gore Verbinski attached at one point to bring the underwater city and the story within to life. More recently, since 2022, Francis Lawrence has been attached to the passion project with a script by Michael Green, yet it's been met by one delay after another, between the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, rewrites, changes at Netflix, and other projects on the docket for the director, like his recent Stephen King adaptation, The Long Walk. The movie hasn't been abandoned, though, and, according to producer Roy Lee, things may finally get underway soon.

Lee recently sat down to talk with Collider's Steve Weintraub for Psycho Killer, from first-time feature filmmaker Gavin Polone and Se7en writer Andrew Kevin Walker, where the subject of BioShock came up. He was asked about the status of the film, given how much things have changed since it was announced. While Lawrence is still attached, he's also working on the upcoming The Hunger Games prequel, Sunrise on the Reaping, set to release on November 20. That is taking priority, but after finishing the story of a youngHaymitch Abernathy (Joseph Zada), the 2K video game adaptation is tentatively next on the docket, and it could potentially tie in with new additions to the BioShock universe.

"We would have gotten it made a few years back, but then other movies got in the way, with one being The Long Walk and the other being The Hunger Games prequel, which comes out this December. We're just waiting for him to finish post-production, because he's going to be working on it through at least September, and then jump back into it. I know that Netflix and Take-Two are very anxious to see the movie come out because they want to have the release coincide with some of the potential new incarnations of the game."

As for when it could enter production, Lee was a little more cautious. There's a real possibility that filming may begin next year, but after everything this film has been through so far, he knows that it's best not to make a promise he might have to break. "It's steadily on the path, but you know how it goes. It's... so many things could get in the way, but I know that the intent is to hopefully get in production next year." So far, no names have been attached to the cast, and details of the story are being kept under wraps. It is, however, expected to follow the plot of the acclaimed first game, centering on plane crash survivor Jack Wynand, who is pulled into the murky depths of the failed underwater Utopia of Rapture and fights for survival against the horrors within with the help of a mysterious man named Atlas and whatever weapons and genetic enhancements he can find. Only as he delves deeper is he confronted with the grim realities of the city and the consequences of his choices, or lack thereof.

'Psycho Killer' Has Been Similarly Long in the Making

If anything, the story of Psycho Killer should give BioShock fans some hope that the Netflix adaptation will eventually come to fruition. Walker's script has taken many years to finally reach the big screen after first appearing online in 2007. Polone has been attached since 2010, yet progress only really got underway when New Regency finally greenlit the film in 2023 with Lee among the producers. Now, it's finally set to hit theaters this Friday, February 20, with a cast headlined by Barbarian star Georgina Campbell, alongside James Preston Rogers and Malcolm McDowell. An old-school serial killer horror thriller, it'll take viewers into the depravity of its titular Satanic murderer, as a motorway patrol officer seeks them out for the brutal murder of her husband.

Stay tuned here at Collider for more on the long-awaited BioShock adaptation as we await further updates.

Director Francis Lawrence

Writers Michael Green

Producers Roy Lee, Cameron MacConomy