Bioshock movie loses director, languishes on hold

BioShock loses its latest director as the movie and video game studios argue over budget and rating.

The film adaptation of BioShock appears to be still be on hold, now with director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo dropping out and telling Indie Wire that the film and game development studios need to come to an agreement on budget and ratings.

"To be honest, by now, I'm completely out of that, and developing other stuff," Fresnadillo told Indie Wire during a press tour for his latest film, Intruders. "Right now it's on hold. The studio and the videogame company, they have to reach some kind of agreement about the budget and the rating."

That echoes a bit what former, former BioShock movie director, and current producer, Gore Verbinski told IGN back in 2010. To be made right, he said, the movie adaptation of Irrational Games' BioShock would have to be a hard R. But since it's set underwater and is, essentially, a horror flick, it would also be expensive. A really expensive R-rated movie, it seems, doesn't go over well with studios. At the time, Verbinkski said that they were working with Fresnadillo to get the budget down, but maintain that hard R.

I guess either Fresnadillo tired of waiting or saw that the project had reached an impasse.

Meanwhile Fresnadillo is apparently hard at work on a new installment in the Highlander series, so you can't be too mad at him.

We've reached out to 2K Games' Ken Levine for comment and will update when he responds.