Irrational "still focusing" on BioShock movie, says Levine
"There's no such thing as 'it's finished'."
BioShock creator Irrational Games has stressed that "we're still focusing" on a film adaptation, despite the project being knocked back time and time again.
"The thing with Gore [Verbinski] didn't work out," Ken Levine, BioShock's brain, told Edge Magazine (via Videogamer). "But there's no such thing as 'it's finished' when it comes to making a movie out of something.
"It's always about the stars aligning. We're still focusing on it, but it hasn't consumed us so much."
For now, BioShock Infinite remains the blinkered pursuit of Irrational Games. It's due out in five months.
"The thing with Gore [Verbinski] didn't work out. But there's no such thing as 'it's finished' when it comes to making a movie out of something."
Ken Levine, co-founder, Irrational Games
The last we heard of the BioShock film was in March, when director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo walked out. He said the studio and "the video game company" had to reach "some kind of an agreement about the budget and the rating".
Gore Verbinski (director of The Ring, Pirates of the Caribbean and Rango) was pushing a "really, really scary" vision, but no studio would cough up the dough for it.
"I wasn't really interested in pursuing a PG-13 version, because the R rating is inherent," he said in February 2011. "Little Sisters and injections and the whole thing - I just wanted to really, really make it a movie where, four days later, you're still shivering and going, 'Jesus Christ!'
Sounds good to us. But whether he's still involved, given Levine's latest comments, remains to be seen.
The film adaptation was first announced in 2008. BioShock, the game, was released to rapturous applause in autumn 2007.