BioShock director believes the video game adaptation will be unique, beautiful, entertaining

Director Francis Lawrence is very busy right now. His fantasy adventure film Slumberland is set to be released through the Netflix streaming service this Friday, November 18th. He’s currently in post-production on the Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. He’s working with Keanu Reeves and Akiva Goldsman to develop a Constantine sequel. He’s also working with screenwriter Michael Green to develop a film adaptation of the video game BioShock – and speaking with Collider, he said thinks BioShock will be his next project to go into production. He also said he believes this film will stand out among video game adaptations because the game has such weight and gravitas that it should make for a movie that’s unique, beautiful, and entertaining.

Lawrence said, “I think it’s one of the best games ever created. It’s also, I think, one of the most visually unique games ever created. The other thing, and one of the things that always appeals to me, is it is very thematic. There’s real ideas and philosophies underneath the game property, and it’s really, really, really thought out. A lot of games may have a great world of some kind, or they may have a great lead character, or they may tee you up for great set-pieces, but they don’t really have the ideas, they don’t have the kind of weight and the gravitas that BioShock does. The sort of combo of real ideas and philosophies mixed with the unbelievable aesthetic of it. Plus, one of the other things that I love, love, love is that sort of strange mashup of genre, the idea that you have what feels like a period piece, mixed with body horror, mixed with sci-fi. It’s one of those great mashups, and I think it can be really unique and really beautiful and really entertaining.“

Lawrence’s previous directing credits include Constantine, I Am Legend, Water for Elephants, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay (parts 1 and 2), and Red Sparrow.

Set across multiple dystopian and visionary landscapes gone wrong, the BioShock video game series blends sci-fi and horror to pose unique existential and societal questions reshaping how game stories are told—all amidst pulse-pounding action gameplay that rewards sharp shooting, clever planning and lethal improvisation.

IMDb provides a synopsis of the first BioShock game:

The year is 1960. While flying over the Atlantic ocean, average citizen Jack blacks out and awakens to discover that he is the sole survivor of a plane crash. Amidst the wreckage of his plane Jack spots and swims to a lighthouse and boards a Bathysphere that takes him deep within the ocean and into Rapture. Originally conceived as a utopia where a man would be entitled to all that he made without the interference of “parasites” by idealistic billionaire mogul Andrew Ryan. Rapture has since decayed and festered from the infectious effects of civil war and anarchy, brought about by the very ideals it citizens and it’s leader embrace.

Aided by a sympathetic smuggler and a rogue geneticist, Jack salvages gene-altering chemicals, transforming himself into a superhuman, and uses his newfound powers and abilities as well as an arsenal of weapons to fend off the vicious hordes of psychotic mutants, security robots and armored super soldiers that resulted from Rapture’s unrest while given the choice to either rescue or lethally harvest the genetic material from Rapture’s only citizens with a chance: the 10-year-old “Little Sisters”. As Jack wanders through the condemning atmosphere of Rapture, he treads towards a secret that could shatter all that he has known forever.

Lawrence and Green’s BioShock adaptation is set up at Netflix. There are multiple BioShock video games, so there is strong franchise potential with this property.

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