In 2008, Gore Verbinski ("Pirates of the Caribbean") was hired by Universal Pictures to direct a live-action film based on the popular "BioShock" video game series. The screenplay was written by "Penny Dreadful" creator John Logan.
Verbinski's ultimate vision was to make the film R-rated and with a budget of $200 million. That's an unheard of budget for an R-rated film, and Universal voiced their concern over it when a year later Zack Snyder's "Watchmen," which was another R-rated film, struggled at the box office. Universal requested he trim the budget to a paltry $80 million, but Verbinski decided to pass as the film's director and only stayed on as a producer. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo ("28 Weeks Later") was then hired to direct, but in 2010 "BioShock" creator Ken Levine stepped in and pulled the plug for good. Levine didn't think Juan Carlos Fresnadillo was a good fit for the "BioShock" universe, it seems.
Thanks to a piece at Kotaku, we can see what conceptual illustrator ("Thor" and "Spider-Man 3") worked on for the project in designing the various sets. Check out his designs below of the power station set, which include key sequences with Little Sister and Big Daddy. I must admit though that seeing things like this always make me rather sad as the original "Bioshock" is one of my favorite video games of all time, and a movie version of it that looked this good at least had a shot at being somewhat decent. Too bad we'll never, ever know...
