ROTTEN TOMATOES: Gore Verbinski to Produce, Direct Bioshock

Gore Verbinski to Produce, Direct Bioshock

by | May 09, 2008

Summary

Universal is moving ahead with a film adaptation of the bestselling videogame Bioshock, with Gore Verbinski attached to produce and direct. John Logan is in negotiations to write the script. Back to Article

(1-20 of 25 posts) | Reply

osiris3657 writes:
on May 09 2008 05:41 AM

Bioshock was a great game, and Verbinski has made a few good films, so this has potential.

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Runtun writes:
on May 09 2008 06:28 AM

Verbinski is a hack and I have very little hope for this.

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SpikesInMySkull writes:
on May 09 2008 06:52 AM

Whoohooo!

Pirates of Rapture: Curse of Andrew Ryan.

If they where going this route why not just hire Uwe Boll so at least we could be REALLY upset.

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John Z. Delorean writes:
on May 09 2008 07:19 AM

Wow! Here come the attacks on Verbinski for whatever reason. I like the first 2 pirates, The Ring and The Weatherman. Comparing him to Uwe Boll is pretty ridiculous. Seems RT posters sometime hate just to hate.

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Elixor writes:
on May 09 2008 07:48 AM

A good movie story line, a good video game story line does not make.

If the movie doesn't suck, I doubt it will resemble much of the story line from the game. They could be interesting if they capture the setting and atmosphere correctly, but they couldn't seem to do that with Resident Evil, which should've been easier IMO.

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John Z. Delorean writes:
on May 09 2008 07:55 AM

In reply to this comment (#1727303)
You can blame Paul W.S. Anderson for the Resident Evil garbage now thats the guy to draw comparisons with Uwe Boll for sure.

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SpikesInMySkull writes:
on May 09 2008 08:10 AM

In reply to this comment (#1727315)
The first Pirates was fun. Saying the first two where good makes zero sence since the second was simply a set up for third, which noone liked.

The Ring.... overrated. The Weatherman... whatever...

The only thing this guys has going for him is the first Pirates, and hiring someone to do Bioshock based on the first Pirates, is like hiring Michael Bay to make Citizen Kane based on Transformer... sure Transformers was fun, but it hardly shows off the skill set need to do Citizen Kane.

The (admittedly extreme) comparison to Uwe Boll was simply to demostrate that this is yet another throw away video game movie from a clearly out of touch industry. Honestly the comparison to Uwe Boll is if anything a complement because at least Uwe Boll does it because he is geniunly bat-**** insane and still manages to get away with, compare to Gore Verbinski, who does it because he's a cog in the Great Hollywood Crap Machine. If they are hiring the Pirates guys to do Bioshock, then clearly don't appriciate the source material, they just know it's popular and they want to make money off of it.

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fatmc writes:
on May 09 2008 08:17 AM

I think Resident Evil was the easiest game to turn into a movie...heck, you can beat the game in 2hours if you know exactly what to do. They could have done it scene by scene... but they made garbage.
Doom3 had enough potential to make it to an ok movie, still made garbage.
etc...
now... this is a better director and says he's a fan... I loved the game...

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jokerboy1991 writes:
on May 09 2008 09:03 AM

Cool maybe a video game movie will be good considering they got a good director, who knows his special effects - so we wont be getting the usual uwe boll game movie's effects (who sucks)

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dahluzz writes:
on May 09 2008 09:28 AM

lemme guess, all that great art deco design he loves so much is going to be listlessly rendered in cg... making it look pretty much like the game does. well guess what, that's not legit enough.

the sets ought to actually be constructed (ya know, real), as complicated as that is compared to clicking a mouse a few thousand times. The same should be true of the suits for the big daddy's and stuff like that. if that high-falootin whirlpool ship fight is any reflection of what's to come, forget about it.

sucked:
mousehunt
the mexican
the weatherman
pirates 2
pirates 3

ok:
the ring

good:
pirates 1

that's not exactly the most encouraging resume for such great source material. however, he does know how to make a buck. hmm....

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John Z. Delorean writes:
on May 09 2008 09:44 AM

In reply to this comment (#1727330)
I'm not gonna defend Verbinski but to say the Ring is overrated? by whose standards? I'm not saying it's Citizen Kane but it was what it was and most people did like it. Same goes for the first Pirates. He atleast knows how to make a good looking movie and give some popcorn fun the right way. As far as The Weatherman it's whatever I'll admit it's not an easy movie to watch and doubt that you even saw it. It is dark and sorta silly but it's good. The point is there are guys that like doing the popcorn fare and do it well for the most part. David Fincher isn't going to direct Bioshock get used to it. Let's end this right now with the numbers.
Mousehunt and The Mexican are trash but let's go from '02
The Ring- nice visuals and well made 72% RT, 7.2 imdb
Pirates Curse of the Black Pearl- 5 oscar noms 79% RT, 8.0 imdb
The Weatherman-dark sometimes silly def unconvential 58% RT, 7.0 imdb
Pirates Dead Man's Chest- popcorn fun again 54% RT, 7.3 imdb
averaged 65% RT, 7.2 imdb on those decent flicks. End of discussion , doggies. hate to defend a guy I could care less about but he knows how to direct popcorn action and always puts out a visually pleasing movie.

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nogard46 writes:
on May 09 2008 09:52 AM

I really like the Mexican, it was a really sweet love story, and the lore of that gun really captured me.

How about we stop playing the Uwe Boll card, its getting old and lame really fast, just shows how much lack of originality the posters are on here.

Look at the past few news stories, anything about any new movie idea, I can see 10 Uwe Boll comments. I've never seen his movies and I don't intend to, its as simple as that, if you don't like some one don't support their work, its not very complicated.

As for GV he is wonderful and intersting, the guy really does a good job of creating abstract, bizare, psychologically moving images, hes great for Bioshock.

So put the UB card away, save it for a new story about someone else, IE UWE BOLL!

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Alex Vo writes:
on May 09 2008 09:56 AM

I want a mockumentary set after Bioshock all about the Little Sisters' misadventures trying to fit into 1960s American society.

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SpikesInMySkull writes:
on May 09 2008 10:23 AM

In reply to this comment (#1727470)
"He atleast knows how to make a good looking movie and give some popcorn fun the right way."

That is exactlty what Bioshock does not need, and exactly my point. They obviously hired Gore Verbinski because they see Bioshock as an opurtunity for a good looking popcorn movie. It isn't.

And by the way, for those of you with no eye for subtext: The whole reason I mentioned Uwe Boll was that Gore Verbinski really isn't that bad of a director, but is completely ill-suited for this job. The point I was making is that of you where going to hire the wrong director for the job anyway, you might as well get Uwe Boll for the job to give the fans something to REALLY be pissed about.

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dahluzz writes:
on May 09 2008 10:41 AM

In reply to this comment (#1727470)
yeah dude, way to conveniently leave out last year's terrible pirates 3, which knocks down your average (which again, conveniently does not include his first two movies, which are are both rotten) to right around 61, hovering barely in fresh territory.

however, once you include mousehunt and the mexican, his t-meter average dips into the high 50's. guy's rotten. good attempt at manipulating the numbers to support your idea that he's qualified for this project, but they just doesn't add up.

the furthest he's come as a film maker is making one out of three pirates films watchable and starting the j-horror rip-off craze. he was picked for his recent films' box office trends, not his directorial skills.

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mouse_clicker writes:
on May 09 2008 11:33 AM

In reply to this comment (#1727470)
The Ring was absolutely overrated, man. When it came out it was hailed as a horror masterpiece that was not only the scariest thing since the Exorcist, but would change the entire face of the genre. It was a good movie, yes, but it was kind of boring and not really all that scary. Pretty standard as far as horror movies go. Plus, it was a westernized remake of a previously existing Japanese movie. It was absolutely overrated.

-Eric

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lilheclou writes:
on May 09 2008 04:40 PM

bioshock was good game i wonder how thy will do the movie and a least they got a interesting directer for this

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SlyDante writes:
on May 09 2008 06:54 PM

Well, it's pointless to complain now because it was eventually going to happen, but I just don't get why BioShock has to have a movie adaptation. I mean, the whole game pretty much WAS an epic movie/story, a true piece of cinematic art that would make Roger Ebert remove the foot from his mouth so he could gasp at how amazing it is.

That being said, Gore Verbinski? Well, the guy may have only had a handful of notable movies...But on the other hand, you can't really say everything else he's done is a steaming turd. Not exactly the best choice, but at least it'll hopefully end up decent. At the very least, it'll still probably end up beating Mortal Kombat for the title of Best Game-To-Movie Adaptation.

On the plus side, John Logan seems like a pretty good choice for a writer (kind of surprised no one read about that part). Gladiator, The Last Samurai, Sweeney Todd...& of course, The Avaiator, which was pretty much about Howard Hughes' descent into madness. And here we have an entire world built around that same kind of madness, right down Andrew "Hughes" Ryan. So Logan's script might be able to help redeem this.

So overall, I'd prefer it if this movie didn't get made (& the Halo movie get resurrected instead, which actually does make sense), but as is, it seems like it may turn out at least okay.

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lilrummagesalecoat writes:
on May 09 2008 08:48 PM

the pirate films were good. the ring was just stupid.

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Lost*Highway* writes:
on May 09 2008 09:50 PM

Out of all his movies I liked Weather Man.

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