Gore Verbinski’s BIOSHOCK Movie Would’ve Used Both Endings and F'ed With People's Heads
Gore Verbinski was lookin to take BioShock to some truly wild places, and now we know just how far he wanted to push it. Years after the ambitious adaptation collapsed, the filmmaker has shared new details about his version of the movie, including a plan that would have somehow used both endings from the original game.
It’s the kind of idea that sounds insane, which is probably why it never made it to the screen. During a Reddit AMA tied to his upcoming film Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, Verbinski fielded a fan question about his long-abandoned take on BioShock, the iconic underwater nightmare from Irrational Games.
His response makes it clear that the movie would’ve stayed brutally faithful to the game’s moral core. He wanted it hard R, fully embracing the Little Sisters and the awful choices forced onto the player.
More surprisingly, he and screenwriter John Logan had already cracked a way to deal with the game’s split endings.
"I had worked out a way with writer John Logan to have both endings, and I was looking forward to bringing that to the big screen and really f*cking with people's heads."
The game famously hinges on whether you save or sacrifice the Little Sisters, leading to radically different conclusions. Most adaptations would pick one path and call it a day. Verbinski wanted both, and he wanted audiences to feel the discomfort of it.
The director was first announced on the project back in 2008, fresh off the massive success of Pirates of the Caribbean. Universal was backing the film, but trouble started brewing almost immediately.
One report suggested the project slowed after Verbinski pushed to build a functioning underwater rail transport system for the production. It sounds absurd until you remember that he later built a real moving train for The Lone Ranger. Practical spectacle has always been his thing.
Eventually, the project slipped out of his hands. After a director change, the movie was ultimately shut down by Ken Levine, the head of Irrational Games, who reportedly "didn't really see the match there." That was the end of Verbinski’s BioShock.
Still, his AMA comments show he hadn’t lost any affection for the material. He explained that his film would’ve leaned hard into the story’s psychological themes while staying visually loyal to the game’s unforgettable look.
"[We] had some great designs for the Big Daddies and the entire underwater demented art-deco aesthetic. Every year I hear something about the project, but I’m not sure any studio is quite willing to go where I was headed."
That last bit says a lot. BioShock isn’t just another video game property. It’s grim, strange, and awesomely uncomfortable, and Verbinski clearly wasn’t interested in sanding down those edges.
Since his departure, progress on a BioShock movie has been slow and frustrating. Francis Lawrence, best known for The Hunger Games films, is currently attached to direct a new adaptation for Netflix, which was announced in 2022.
Beyond that, updates have been scarce. Producer Roy Lee shared late last year that the script would "definitely" be based on the first game and is still being worked on.
Sixteen years after it first entered development, BioShock remains trapped in cinematic limbo with no release date in sight. Verbinski’s version sounded risky, intense, and more than a little unhinged, and it might’ve been too much for any studio to sign off on.