I didn't catch this when it first hit, but I thought it was good news anyway. IGN talked with filmmaker Gore Verbinski last week and got a quick update on the status of the BioShock movie, but more importantly he spoke about how it "has to be R, a hard R." A video game movie that's hard R? I don't think Universal will ever make this movie (they already canceled Verbinski's original version due to budget constraints) especially after the mediocre performance of the video game movie Prince of Persia.
It was announced last August that Pirates helmer Gore Verbinski would no longer be directing BioShock, only producing. Instead, 28 Weeks Later director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo landed the job, but then put the project on the backburner to direct Intruders instead. And as for whether Prince of Persia will have any impact on it, Verbinski thinks it won't. "No, I think BioShock's a rare one because it's actually a great story." I agree, but I don't think Universal will recognize that, they'll be more concerned about why Prince of Persia failed than how this could be a big success, if don't correctly. As for its status, here's what Verbinski said:
"We're working trying to make it. The problem with BioShock was: R-rated movie, underwater, horror. It's a really expensive R-rated movie," he explained. "So we're trying to figure out a way working with [director] Juan Carlos [Fresnadillo] to get the budget down and still keep so it's true to the core audience, you know? The thing is it has to be R, a hard R."
The more I hear from Verbinski, the more I've grown to like him, he knows what to do with this video game adaptation and I'm at least glad he's still producing, because maybe that means we'll eventually get the hard R BioShock movie I know we all we want to see. "We don't want to dumb it down, we don't want to make it PG-13. We want to keep it really edgy, and it's a huge bill," Verbinski insisted. Hearing that is music to my ears. Let's hope the project doesn't get even more cut down like that by Universal. And you know what, I'm fine with waiting a few more years if that's what it will take to get this made the way Verbinski wants it.
Since it might be delayed for a while, is there a chance they could eventually lose Fresnadillo as the director? Probably not. "We're really down the road with Juan Carlos and right now it's really a budget thing and how to keep the integrity and keep it a Hollywood movie because it could balloon. It's a lot. Our first budget was extraordinarily high and we're working on it." So there we go. Stay tuned for more updates on BioShock. For now it sounds like there's not much we will hear about it until after Fresnadillo finishes shooting Intruders.
No comments:
Post a Comment