The Bioshock movie has been floating around for quite some time now. Since May of 2008 to be exact, where Take Two signed an agreement with Universal Studios to make the movie a reality with writer, John Logan, and the movie’s original director, Gore Verbinski. Set for release in 2010, the movie was further put on hold due to a lack of a set budget. Verbinski then dropped the project back in 2009, because the film was to be filmed overseas to save money. He was replaced with Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo.

Of course, those who were hoping the movie would rise from the ashes like some mystical phoenix will be sorely disappointed to hear that Fresnadillo, who is “developing other stuff”, dropped from the project as well. Reason? Budget compromise. I don’t blame him at all. If there’s no progress to be made in two years, why stay? This puts the movie back even further than its already stalled-out state. Heck, it is back to where it started in 2008.

The root of the budget issues spawn from the desire to give the movie a hard-R rating. Because of that, movie studios didn’t really want to back the project. Well, what’s wrong with a hard-R rating? It allows the director to have full reign of what he can do to the movie. Of course, hard-R ratings generally means less money because the audience is limited. And because the movie is a top, blockbuster VIDEO GAME, I’m sure movie studios still have the impression that the target audience would be under the age of 18, even though the game itself has an M-rating. All understandable I guess, and the movie industry is indeed, still a business, and if they can’t make the profit they want, then it’s not happening.

What do I have to say about all this? Good, actually. Yea, a Bioshock movie would be potential epicness in the form of visual ecstasy, but with what’s been going down, the movie will be rush-job and be sent out to the world as another one of those video game-movies… and I love Bioshock enough to say “No”. I want the movie to be pretty dam perfect, and I’m willing to wait for everything to be settled for it to happen. Besides, Bioshock Infinite is just over the horizon and with Ken Levine as the game’s creative director, I can’t wait for it to come out. And who knows, after the game’s release, that might free-up some time for Levine himself to bring some creative, screenwriting magic onto the movie’s front. But even he has said there’s “No need for a movie” at this time.