Netflix’s BioShock Movie Just Took a Huge Step Forward—and Fans Are Losing It
After years of radio silence, Netflix’s BioShock adaptation finally dropped some big news that’s sending shockwaves through the gaming world.
BioShock fans, we might actually be getting this thing. After years of stop-and-start, Netflix's live-action BioShock movie is moving forward, and one of the producers just laid out where it stands and what version of the game they are tackling.
Yes, it is the first game
Producer Roy Lee told The Direct that Netflix wants everyone to keep quiet for now, but he did confirm the key piece fans care about: the movie is based on the original 2007 BioShock. No mashup, no sequel leapfrogging — the first game.
'Netflix wants us to keep everything under wraps. But it is definitely going to be based on the first BioShock game.'
Why the delay? Classic development shuffle
According to Lee, the project hit a speed bump because they went back into the script. While that was happening, another movie got made — the Stephen King dystopian survival horror The Long Walk — and director Francis Lawrence was already locked in for the next Hunger Games film, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. Translation: BioShock is basically waiting for Lawrence to wrap Panem before he dives under the sea. The script is still being worked on right now.
The inside baseball part
This is one of those very Hollywood timelines where a rewrite triggers a domino effect. They paused for script work, another production slid into that gap, and the director's calendar got pinned by a franchise commitment. None of that means trouble — just the reality of juggling big projects.
- Platform: Netflix (live-action film)
- Source material: BioShock (2007) — the first game
- Director: Francis Lawrence (plans to direct after The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping)
- Current status: Script revisions in progress; waiting for Lawrence to finish Hunger Games
- Recent schedule note: The Long Walk shot while BioShock script work continued
- Writer: Michael Green
- Producers: Roy Lee, Cameron MacConomy
- Genre: Science fiction
Bottom line
BioShock is alive, it is Rapture-era, and it is queued up behind Sunrise on the Reaping on Francis Lawrence's to-do list. Not the instant gratification some of us wanted, but after nearly two decades, a little more patience might finally pay off.