"Bioshock" Movie Has A Director!

Variety reports that Universal Studios has finally found a director for its bigscreen adaptation of jaw-droppingly awesome video game "Bioshock". It’s not Gore "Pirates Franchise" Verbinski. So who gets the gig? Juan Carlos Fresnadillo.

Who?

He’s the guy that directed "28 Weeks Later"–the intense follow-up to the granddaddy of the "Fast Zombie" subgenre, "28 Days Later". If you haven’t seen the movie, you should. It doesn’t just rock as a horror-action movie, it’s also layered with clever Bush-era political subtexts. Oh, and there’s a scene where a guy chops off zombie heads with helicopter blades. It is awesome.

He also directed the little-seen but twisty and effective Spanish-language thriller "Intacto", which is another Official Zombiezeus Netflix Recommendation. I won’t tell you too much about it, but I will tell you that it involves people who seem to be either overly lucky or overly unlucky, and the stakes just keep getting higher and higher. And that it’s really good.

I’m happy with this choice because it’s the kind of thing more video game movie adaptations should do–find talented, hungry filmmakers who take chances and have something to say cinematically (especially visually), who can ADD to the original source material, not just grab a screenplay and churn out whatever the studio wants without putting any effort in. This could be great.

Oh, you’re wondering why Verbinski is no longer doing it? Because he’s committed to an animated movie, "Rango", which is supposedly all hinging on the fact that Johnny Depp is doing the voice of the main character. You’ll forgive me, I’m sure, if I say "Whoop-de-freakin’-do".

See, Universal pulled the plug on a Verbinski-directed "Bioshock" movie because during pre-production they saw that it was going to cost $160 million. That’s a bit rich for an untested property (though a popular video game, it is by no means "Super Mario Brothers"). So Universal went back and crunched some numbers and decided that if they shoot it overseas somewhere, they can take advantage of tax incentives and cheaper labor, etc. to bring the budget way down. But because Gore "The Verb" Verbinksi is doing "Rango", he can’t go overseas. So Universal was all ‘That’s cool, we’ll get someone cheaper to direct, too’, and brought in Juan Carlos. That choice, by the way, is pending approval by the game’s studio, Take-Two Interactive.

So there you have it. An exciting choice for an exciting property. Personally, I don’t think a "BioShock" movie needs to be made at all, and will never get anywhere near the artistic and visceral success of the game. It’s a GREAT game, one of my all-time favorites, and can stand alone just fine as-is (I don’t even think they should do a sequel, but you can be DAMN sure I’m playing it). Since I’m realistic, I understand that it IS getting made, and I will base my decisions of the movie on the merits of the movie itself. It’s only fair. Plus, in my mind, it would be hard to fuck up the source material.

What doth the Geeks say?