Netflix’s ‘BioShock’ Is in Its ‘Early Stages’ of Development

Well before our recent submarine disaster, BioShock made us imagine the terrors of living underwater. Luckily for those of us who grew up playing the games, Netflix has confirmed that there will be a live-action movie of the beloved game series.

TV viewers were recently treated to a relatively faithful live-action adaptation The Last of Us, which was able to make even fans of the video game series sob. BioShock wouldn’t be the first survival horror game to make the leap to a high-quality live-action production, but though they’re in the “early stages” of production according to Francise Lawrence, the director of the BioShock series, there’s no release date in sight, despite having been confirmed earlier in 2022.

Last we heard, the script still wasn’t complete near the end of 2023, so it’s likely that the earliest we could possibly see this movie is 2025, if not later. No cast has been confirmed, either, but that’s something to worry about much later—especially since we don’t even know what characters to expect. Sure, there’s likely to be an Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine, but depending on the creative liberties taken, it’s hard to know who else we’ll see, aside from the broader strokes of Big Daddies, Little Sisters, and Splicers. Will the game’s protagonist, Jack, appear, or will the movie take a different direction than what worked to immerse the player in the game’s world?

Lawrence is known for his work on The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Constantine and says he’s a longtime fan of the BioShock series. He’ll be bringing back the original game soundtrack with a blend of ’20s & ’30s music. There’s something inherently unsettling about BioShock’s environment, and Lawrence intends to bring that to life by looking at inspiration from other films like The Shining and The City of Lost Children, to name a few.

With the script only being finished recently, if at all, it’s hard to know what to expect from the plot, but based on the events of the first game, we might discover the underwater dystopia of Rapture by crash-landing in the middle of the ocean. The game had the player exploring the underwater city where residents had run wild with genetic modification, turning it into a bizarre, horrific war zone.

(featured image: 2K Games)