New Bioshock movie details revealed

We’ve known for a couple of years Netflix is working on a Bioshock movie, but it seems plans have changed. Just a bit.

The Bioshock movie is going to be “smaller” than originally intended, thanks to changes in the way Netflix budgets are doled out behind the scenes.

“The new regime has lowered the budgets” says Bioshock producer Roy Lee. He was talking at a Comic-Con panel in San Diego, according to Variety.

“So we’re doing a much smaller version. … It’s going to be a more personal point of view, as opposed to a grander, big project.”

Could this be a problem? The Bioshock games are known for their epic reveals, the moment the original game’s underwater city is witnessed. And when we see the scope of the flying city of Bioshock Infinite. Can that be done on the cheap?

Ask a director like Gareth Edwards and you’d have no problem. But despite the change of plan, Bioshock’s original director Francis Lawrence is still on-board.

In the past he’s directed movies from The Hunger Games series, Red Sparrow and a whole slew of music videos.

The person behind this shift in Netflix strategy is Dan Lin, the streamer’s film chief. He's been in place since April.

According to a New York Times story, the Lin plan was to make movies “better, cheaper and less frequent.” But CEO Ted Sarandos disputed that, saying “there’s no appetite to make fewer films,” as reported by Deadline.

So, yeh, maybe we won’t see a huge dip in the number of Netflix projects, but Sarandos wasn’t disputing the cut in budgets.

Recently we also heard Apple plans to cut its spending on TV and film, and its output is not in the same league as Netflix in terms of quantity (it sure is in quality terms.) The realities of running a streaming service are really starting to bite.

Actual details on the Bioshock movie are as scant as those on the long-rumoured Bioshock 4. We don’t have a tentative release date, an idea of a theme or a title. This smaller and more intimate suggestion is actually the biggest lead we have on the film to date.

Big Bioshock fan? Your next fix may not come from the series itself. Bioshock lead creator Ken Levine’s next video game project is called Judas, and is currently meant to be out by March 2025.

It’s not Bioshock, but it does have some of the same flavour.

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