BioShock movie director Francis Lawrence has promised that his upcoming Netflix adaptation will remain loyal to the games, heaping praise on the hit franchise.
He told Collider: "There's always discussions about rating and tone. I don't want to get into it too much now because it's pretty early on in the process, but I certainly have not felt stifled in any way, or sent in any directions with Netflix. I mean, basically me and Cameron [MacConomy] who works with me, and Michael [Green] are getting to do what we want to do, which is great. A lot of it is staying really true to the game itself, and we're talking to Take-Two [Interactive] and [BioShock creator] Ken Levine."
Michael Green is penning the movie's script – he previously co-wrote Logan and Blade Runner 2049, and his work on the latter earned him an Oscar nomination. Lawrence, meanwhile, has had a varied career, directing movies like Constantine, I Am Legend, and four of the Hunger Games series, as well as the music videos for Justin Timberlake's Cry Me A River and Avril Lavigne's Sk8r Boi. As for BioShock, the director is full of praise for the game, which takes place in a retrofuturistic world and combines first-person shooter and role-playing elements.
"I think it's one of the best games ever created. It's also, I think, one of the most visually unique games ever created. The other thing, and one of the things that always appeals to me, is it is very thematic. There's real ideas and philosophies underneath the game property, and it's really, really, really thought out," he added.
"A lot of games may have a great world of some kind, or they may have a great lead character, or they may tee you up for great set-pieces, but they don't really have the ideas, they don't have the kind of weight and the gravitas that Bioshock does. The sort of combo of real ideas and philosophies mixed with the unbelievable aesthetic of it. Plus, one of the other things that I love, love, love is that sort of strange mashup of genre, the idea that you have what feels like a period piece, mixed with body horror, mixed with sci-fi. It's one of those great mashups, and I think it can be really unique and really beautiful and really entertaining."
