BioShock film 'killed' by creative director Ken Levine

The BioShock film that was in the works years ago was 'killed' by the game's creative director Ken Levine.

The big screen adaptation of BioShock was originally intended to launch in 2011 before budget and director issues got in the way.

Levine said he decided to cancel the whole movie when Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski left the project.

"There was a deal in place and it was actually in production at Universal, and Gore Verbinski was directing it," Levine told Edge.

"And what happened was - this is my theory - it's a very big movie and Gore was very excited about it and he wanted to make a very dark, what he would call a 'hard-rated' horror film - an R rated film with a lot of blood.

"Then The Watchmen came out - and I really liked The Watchmen - but it didn't do well for whatever reason and the studio got cold feet about making an R rated $200million USD film.

"So they said, 'Gore, what about if it was an $80million USD film?' and enough time had gone by where Gore didn't want to make an $80million dollar film. And so they brought another director in and I didn't really see the match there."

Levine claimed Take-Two gave him the option of giving the movie the go-ahead or killing it off.

"Take-Two is one of those companies that gives a lot of trust to their creative people and so they said to me, 'If you want to kill it Ken, kill it'. And I killed it."

In the end Levine didn't want to see the BioShock world "done in a way I didn't think was right".

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