BioShock Movie: Verbinski's SHOCKING Plan For BOTH Endings?!

Remember the scrapped BioShock movie? It was supposed to be directed by Gore Verbinski, the guy behind the original "Pirates of the Caribbean" flicks. Well, Verbinski recently dropped a fascinating tidbit about what his version would have been: he planned to incorporate *both* of the original game's endings.

BioShock Movie: Verbinski's SHOCKING Plan For BOTH...

For those who don't remember, or weren't glued to their Xbox 360 back in 2007, BioShock had two very different endings. They were determined by whether you, as the player, chose to rescue or exploit the Little Sisters, those creepy but ultimately innocent characters. Treat them well, and you got a relatively happy ending. Exploit them for their ADAM, and you got a much darker, morally questionable one, hinting at a global apocalypse. Verbinski's vision, which was penned by John Logan of "Gladiator" and "Skyfall" fame, aimed to grapple with this duality somehow.

This is where things get really interesting. Verbinski's BioShock was slated to start filming in 2008, but Universal pulled the plug due to concerns over its hefty $200 million budget and the director's insistence on an R rating. He was reportedly just eight weeks away from shooting. Imagine that! Years of trying to get this made, and then… nothing. Ken Levine, the creative genius behind BioShock, officially confirmed its cancellation in 2013.

So, how would Verbinski have pulled off incorporating both endings? It's a fascinating question. Would he have presented one as a dream sequence, a "what if" scenario? Or maybe the film would have presented two possible futures, leaving the audience to ponder which one was "real"? This was long before BioShock Infinite explored the multiverse, so Verbinski's idea felt pretty novel at the time. I personally always liked the darker ending, it felt more true to the game's themes.

Now, flash forward to today. Netflix is taking another crack at a BioShock adaptation. The streaming giant announced its intentions in 2022, but the project has reportedly hit some snags, like budget cuts and script revisions. It sounds like your typical big-budget adaptation woes.

However, there's still hope! Producer Roy Lee confirmed just last month (September 2025) that the project is still very much alive, with Francis Lawrence ("The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping") directing. Lawrence acknowledged the challenges, telling IGN, "It's a tricky adaptation, so there's lots of things to figure out and to get right." He added that "regime changes at Netflix" have caused some stalls, but he believes they're now in "a pretty good place." Let's hope so! Meanwhile, in the video game realm, 2K confirmed last summer that it has a new BioShock project in the works, but details are still scarce.