A couple of months ago it looked like Gore Verbinski’s Bioshock adaptation wouldn’t be happening, and it turns out that this was half-true.
Verbinski couldn’t commit to the film because he’s directing Rango, an animated film starring Johnny Depp, so Universal decided to hand it off to Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. Who? The Spanish director became well known for his thriller Intacto, but he is known to English-speaking audiences only as the director of the quite-fun 28 Weeks Later.
It’s a pretty ballsy move for such a massive property for the studio (the budget’s risen to 160 million) but perhaps they figure that the film will perform no matter what. The game did sell over three million copies, after all, an absolutely huge amount for such a new and weird franchise.
Verbinski will still be producing and they will be working from the same script by John Logan (The Aviator, The Last Samurai). Universal’s freakout over the budget means that the film will most likely be produced “offshore”. Of course, considering the property, it sorta has to be….