See Concept Art For The ‘Bioshock’ Movie That Was Sunk During Development

Bioshockis a perfect concept for a game, and a difficult proposition as a narrative film. The game, played from a first-person perspective, features a largely anonymous protagonist in a massive underwater city, where armored enforcers protect little girls whose bodies have been surgically… embellished to generate a mutagen that can push human DNA into radical new shapes.

So while Universal once hadGore Verbinski(Pirates of the Caribbean) set to direct a big-screen adaptation, that effort eventually sank under the weight of all the many factors that made the movie seem like a long shot in the first place. But some unused Bioshock movie concept art is making the rounds, and though it you can see familiar game concepts imagined for the screen.

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This art comes from theonline portfolioof illustrator Kasra Farahani, who worked on films such asThorandStar Trek Into Darkness. There, Farahani has offered up a batch of unused Bioshock movie concept art. (viaBlastr)

One selection of concept art, of course, does not give an accurate impression of how the film might have developed as a whole. But one thing apparent here is the way that the underwater nature of the story’s location could have been minimized for many scenes, and suggested with CG window treatments.

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That underwater setting was only one of the story’s many hurdles that prevented a film from being realized. More difficult was the nature of the story itself, and the battle over a rating — the R rating that a serious adaptation of the game would generate would be at odds with the required budget, makingBioshockalmost a certain folly right from the start.

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