The long-awaited BioShock movie will adapt the series’ first game, its producer has confirmed, as work on the film’s script continues.
Netflix announced plans for a movie version of 2K Games’ beloved franchise back in 2022, following earlier, discarded plans for a BioShock movie that stretch back almost two decades. But recent years have seen the project stall again, as Netflix cuts changed the scope of the movie, something which has seen its script adapt accordingly.
Now, producer Roy Lee has confirmed the project is still in active development, with The Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence remaining on board.
“Netflix wants us to keep everything under wraps,” Lee told The Direct. “But it’s definitely going to be based on the first BioShock game.”
Lee went on to say that Lawrence had the BioShock movie lined up as his next project after The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which is set to go into production soon ahead of a November 2026 release date.
“BioShock was delayed for a little bit where we had to do some more script work,” Lee said. “And so as the script work is being done, we shot [Stephen King dystopian survival horror] The Long Walk, and he was already committed to doing the next Hunger Games movie. And so it’s just waiting for him whenever the Hunger Games is completed,” Lee added, “and the script is just being worked on right now.”
Fans had expected the project to be in full production by now, though Lee stated last year that the movie was being reworked for a smaller budget following changes in Netflix management. An initial script from Logan writer Michael Green has also been ditched, for a version now penned by Terminator: Dark Fate’s Justin Rhodes.
“It’s a tricky adaptation, so there’s lots of things to figure out and to get right,” Lawrence told IGN previously. “There’s regime changes at Netflix, and so things stall out and get re-energized and stall out and get re-energized, and I think we’re in a pretty good place, honestly.”
Back in the world of video games, 2K recently confirmed it had overhauled the similarly long-awaited BioShock 4, which has been in development for the last decade. Amid layoffs and a further delay to the project’s release, former Gears of War head and Diablo franchise lead Rod Fergusson will now oversee the project. Fergusson will also head up the game’s development studio Cloud Chamber, as it attempts to finally wrestle the project to release.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
