Out promoting the release of “The Long Walk” this week, producer Roy Lee spoke briefly about the “BioShock” film adaptation in the works at Netflix.
At last report about a year ago, Lee said the Netflix executive regime change (and subsequent wallet tightening) has led to a refocusing of the project away from a larger-scale epic project and into something with a “more personal point of view”.
In 2022, Francis Lawrence (“The Hunger Games,” “I Am Legend”) came on board to direct and Michael Green (“Blade Runner 2049,” “Logan”) had been hired to adapt the script.
That’s still the case says Lee. In fact, the Lawrence-directed “The Long Walk” came about due to delays on the “BioShock” movie. He tells The Direct:
“Well, ‘The Long Walk’ became a reality because ‘BioShock’ was delayed for a little bit where we had to do some more script work. And so as the script work is being done, we shot ‘The Long Walk,’ and he was already committed to doing the next ‘Hunger Games’ movie. And so it’s just waiting for him whenever the ‘Hunger Games’ is completed, and the script is just being worked on right now.”
Filming on “The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping” began in July in Spain with Lawrence well into production. If “BioShock” is next, then it would likely film in 2026 for a 2027 release.
Lee also confirmed the film will indeed be set in Rapture: “It’s definitely going to be based on the first BioShock game.” Lawrence indicated back in May it has taken so long as it’s a “tricky adaptation” but he felt the project was in a good place.
First released in 2007, the first two games were set in the 1960s in the Art Deco stylings of the undersea city of Rapture – a fallen scientific objectivist utopia consumed years before by its own ambitions and lack of morality and regulation. It is now the dominion of crazed genetic experiments. The franchise has sold more than 39 million copies worldwide across its three titles and their various editions and collections.
