We got the chance to sit down with Francis Lawrence, the director of Netflix’s BioShock movie, who gave us some of the gritty details as to why this adaptation has taken so long to make.
The BioShock movie is a project that’s been floating in limbo for more than a decade. The film initially had Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) attached to direct, but it fell through. Later, Guillermo del Toro was in talks to helm the steampunk movie, but that didn’t work out, either.
Now, Lawrence — who directed almost every Hunger Games movie and, most recently, The Long Walk — is taking over. Lawrence chatted about his history with the BioShock movie in an interview for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which comes to theaters next month. When asked about what projects he’d like to adapt in the future, he mentioned BioShock but admitted it’s been “tricky” to translate to the silver screen.
“I'm also working on BioShock. That's another one that I've been really trying to get going, which is also at Netflix, which is partially tricky. That's a tricky adaptation, because it's an amazing, amazing world. But as a player, you are the lead character of that story. So cracking that is a tough one, but we're getting close, which is also exciting,” he told us.
Lawrence admitted the film has been in his orbit since 2009, saying that Verbinski actually approached him about it — essentially offering it up to him on a silver platter — after his vision for the movie was shot down by Universal.
“This thing has kind of been on my radar for a long time, as was The Long Walk," he continued. "The Long Walk was something that I tried to do probably 20 years ago, and then somebody else got the rights, and then it kind of bounced around, bounced around, bounced around, and I sort of tracked it, and then it finally landed in my lap, and I went and made it. I remember BioShock was around 2009, I think Gore Verbinski was going to do it at Universal. But it was a $200 million movie, and he wanted a very specific person in it that was not a star, and it was R-rated. Universal was like, ‘No way are we doing this.’ So Gore actually approached me and asked if I wanted to do it, but I was already doing something else and couldn't.
“So since probably 2009, it's kind of been in my orbit and something that's always been percolating a little bit like Long Walk. And then yeah, when Guillermo didn't see eye to eye with some of the — I think it was the creator of the game — and that kind of fell apart, then it came my direction. And so I sort of jumped at the opportunity and so I have been trying to develop that one.”
Lawrence’s remark about del Toro not seeing “eye to eye” with BioShock’s creator is a gentle way of putting their conversation; speaking with IGN earlier this year, del Toro told us that he never wants to try his hand at adapting a video game ever again, citing a “disastrous” phone call he had with the folks behind BioShock as the reason why.
“We had a very contentious call about a couple of games,” he recalled. “...So adapting it, BioShock, we had a couple of calls. They are probably one of the most disastrous calls I've ever had. So no, f**k no.”
Lawrence assured us that he's dedicated to making the movie the best it can be, telling us that he's focused on honoring the source material and making sure the game is faithfully brought to the screen as best it can be.
"The creator of BioShock had to basically just give the sign off on me, my knowledge," he said. "Again, [he] wanted to know that I was in love with the spirit of the game. I think he wanted to really protect certain elements and ideas and themes, as one should if you're the creator."
You can read more from our interview with Guillermo del Toro, and check out more news about Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.