Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski has mentioned that if he canceled the BioShock film, he meant to incorporate each endings from the unique recreation indirectly to confuse audiences.
Verbinski was tapped to work with Common Studios on a movie model of the favored recreation in 2008, utilizing a script from Gladiator and Skyfall screenwriter John Logan.
Sadly, the venture by no means materialized because of lengthy disputes over its deliberate $200 million finances, but it surely was additionally thought-about harmful as a result of it was aimed toward an R-rating for grownup audiences. Verbinski has beforehand mentioned that the movie was accomplished inside eight weeks of filming, after which plans fell by means of. Work continued for a number of extra years to get the movie financed, however BioShock creator Ken Levine confirmed that the venture was utterly deserted by 2013.
“I liked this venture when it was arising for manufacturing at Common,” Verbinski now says concerning the venture in a Q&A on Reddit. “I wished to delve deeper into the Oedipal facet and actually perceive the ‘decisions’ that the Little Sisters and the principle character make…and their penalties.”
“We labored out a solution to obtain each endings with screenwriter John Logan, and we have been wanting ahead to bringing it to the massive display screen and scratching folks’s heads,” he continued. “[We]had some nice designs in the entire Large Daddy and underwater loopy Artwork Deco aesthetic. Yearly I hear one thing about this venture, however I do not know if there is a studio prepared to go the place I used to be aiming.”
The unique BioShock has two endings based mostly on the participant’s option to rescue or sacrifice the sport’s Little Sisters, leading to two very totally different outcomes relying on their stage of mercy. The sport’s “pleased” ending is discovered when all of the Little Sisters are rescued, rewarding the protagonist’s lengthy life and the surviving sisters who’re finally current on their deathbeds. Nonetheless, harvesting a Little Sister will as a substitute present that your character has influenced the inhabitants of Rapture to imagine that energy is what issues. A creepy ultimate cutscene then reveals what seems to be a nuclear submarine being hijacked in an assault.
Subsequently, the 2 outcomes are fairly totally different, both an extended and pleased life or a potential nuclear apocalypse, though it’s unclear precisely how Verbinski’s movie portrayed each. Was one a dream sequence that advised a unique final result might have been, or did the movie current the viewers with two potential futures, leaving them unclear as to which one would really unfold?
It is price declaring that whereas the later BioShock Infinite builds on the multiverse concept (“the lighthouse at all times exists”!), this was nonetheless years away on the time Verbinski acquired concerned. Nonetheless, it is enjoyable to consider how the difference will deal with the sport’s two endings now. Notably, plans for a BioShock adaptation have since resumed, with Netflix at the moment contemplating the potential of an adaptation.
Netflix introduced plans for a brand new movie in 2022, however the venture has stalled once more in recent times as cuts have modified the scope of the movie and required adjustments to the script. In September 2025, producer Roy Lee confirmed that the venture was nonetheless in lively improvement, with director Francis Lawrence connected to direct after ending work on the upcoming Starvation Video games: Dawn on the Reaping.
“This can be a tough adaptation, so there are loads of issues that must be understood and get proper,” Lawrence beforehand instructed videogameaddicted. “At Netflix, there are regime adjustments, issues stall and are available again to life, stall and are available again to life once more. I feel we’re in a fairly good place, to be sincere with you.”
Returning to the world of video video games, 2K introduced final summer time that it was overhauling BioShock 4, which was additionally extremely anticipated and had been in improvement for the previous decade. Amid layoffs and additional delays within the venture’s launch, former Gears of Conflict head and Diablo collection lead Rod Ferguson shall be overseeing the venture. Ferguson can even head up the sport’s improvement studio, Cloud Chamber, and is engaged on the venture for eventual launch.
Tom Phillips is videogameaddicted’s information editor. You may contact Tom at tom_phillips@videogameaddicted.com or discover him on Bluesky. @tomphillipseg.bsky.social