Netflix’s ‘BioShock’ Adaptation Is Making A Critical Mistake

The BioShock movie has been gestating for what feels like forever. After being announced back in 2022, the project apparently went straight to development hell. I was filled with confidence last year after a producer announced a promising change to the movie’s scope, but a year later, that same producer has made me a skeptic again.

In an interview with The Direct, producer Roy Lee confirmed that the upcoming movie will be a straight adaptation of the video game.

“Netflix wants us to keep everything under wraps. But it’s definitely going to be based on the first BioShock game,” Lee told the outlet, adding that the script is being worked on. Francis Lawrence, director of the recent Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk, is attached to direct. According to Lee, Lawrence took on The Long Walk because the BioShock script was still being worked on.

There’s reason to be excited about a BioShock adaptation in an era where Hollywood is actually getting video games right. The BioShock universe is one of gaming’s most imaginative worlds, but I can’t help but be disappointed that those involved are choosing to do something as uninteresting as a boilerplate adaptation of the game that kicked it off.

Amazon Prime’s Fallout is the main reason why a straight adaptation seems so uninspired in 2025. Rather than cumbersomely converting any of the role-playing games into a show, Fallout’s showrunners wisely decided to tell its own story set in the broader canon. The result has been excellent. Prime’s Fallout has all the dark humor, retro-futuristic tone, and morbidly cozy familiarity of the award-winning games, but it’s also found a way to make its story compelling for players and newcomers alike. It certainly helps that the actual show and cast are one-of-a-kind.

It’s a major boon that Fallout gets to tell its own story, and BioShock seemed ripe for a similar approach. The most recent game in the series, 2013’s BioShock Infinite, introduced a multiverse to the franchise long before that was cool. Infinite was essentially a remix of the first game, set in a skybound city built on the ugliest parts of American idealism. The idea that there are an infinite number of universes where a charismatic leader’s misguided vision for the perfect society crumbles under the weight of an exploited working class is one I’ll always have time for.

Infinite’s multiversal setup seems like the perfect gateway to tell an original story that pursues the same themes. With Cloud Chamber’s BioShock 4 stuck in development hell itself, this movie could be the perfect chance to expand the long-dormant BioShock mythos. Where else could BioShock be set? What other wrinkles and conflicts can be added to the essential parts of a BioShock narrative? What distinct story can a movie tell? These are all obvious questions that Netflix is ignoring.

Even if the production insisted on visiting Rapture for its big screen debut, this particular part of the timeline is ripe for original stories of its own. BioShock 2 explored the aftermath of the first game’s events, and provided a glimpse at the fall of Rapture via its underrated multiplayer mode. What if the movie offered a more intimate look at how city founder Andrew Ryan’s libertarian ideals clashed with the needs of the people who bought into his unregulated paradise under the sea?

John Shirley’s 2012 prequel novel, BioShock: Rapture, explored these ideas in greater detail, diving into how and why Ryan wanted to create a society away from the world, and where it all went wrong. Shirley’s text is the perfect blueprint for an entire series, let alone a movie. I’d be all in on a BioShock prequel. Let us see firsthand why a city built on unchecked scientific advancements and the exploitation of the poor led to dissent. Let us see how Ryan ignored his flaws and insisted on making his dream work. I’d even take a more intimate story about how the average Rapture resident exists in the margins of a city fated to fall, something that would work with the smaller production Lee promised last year.

Given all of these possibilities, it’s hard to get excited about a straightforward retelling of an 18-year-old game. Audiences don’t need a movie version of something they can play for a few bucks. A movie based entirely on the first BioShock may be the safest way to bring such an important part of gaming’s history to life on the big screen, but it’s also the dullest. Hopefully, the final script will show some more imagination by the time production kicks off.