Netflix
The Gears of War and Bioshock movies are still on the way, according to Netflix
Netflix’s Head of Film has an update on the Gears of War and Bioshock adaptations, which have been silent for years on end.
Netflix has become convinced that video game adaptations, as long as they are made with quality, have an audience. We’ve seen live-action productions like ‘The Witcher’, but also many in animated format such as ‘Castlevania’, ‘Arcane’, and the upcoming release of ‘Devil May Cry’, and points to the arrival of many more. Two of those adaptations that have been talked about at length and that have been missing for a long time are those based on Gears of War and Bioshock, of which today we know a little more.
The Gears of War film adaptation that we have spent a long time without knowing anything about except rumors, and repeated statements from Dave Bautista, former WWE star turned successful actor, in which he reaffirms his wish to play Marcus Phoenix. Bautista even starred in an advertising campaign related to Gears 5, for which he even became a playable character in th game’s multiplayer modes.
On the other hand, not even rumors have emerged about Bioshock, so the only possible ones regarding it has been related to its cancellation. We do know who is behind the cameras of this project and it is none other than Francis Lawrence, who has also directed several releases of ‘The Hunger Games’, ‘Constantine’, and ‘Red Sparrow’. However, both are still very much alive for Netflix.
What is the state of the Gears of War and Bioshock movies?
“You know, Bio, we’re waiting on the script. So we’re in that kind of phase. The strike slowed us down quite a bit,” explained Scott Stuber, Head of Film at Netflix, to Collider. “That one and Gears of War, too, I’d really like to push on. I mean, Gears of War I was the producer on when I was a producer, so to bring it full circle has been great for me to get back together with the guys at Microsoft. So those are two really big ones that I feel aspirationally. There are huge audiences. As you know, that kind of medium, they don’t translate always, and historically, as an industry, we’ve screwed it up quite a bit. But both those have really rich worlds, have really good characters, so they’re very natural kind of transitions to screen and filmmaking.”
“We haven’t even got them. We’ve done long treatments. [T]here’s a lot of people that we wanna make sure feel good,” continued the executive. “Inevitably, when you’re making those, first and foremost, you gotta make sure the fan base is good, right? So you’re working with the creators, you’re working with the teams who make the games. We’ve worked out a lot of that, so now we’ve got great writers, and I feel like, hopefully, we’ll be on the road once we get those drafts.”
All this does not sound like anything other than they both are in a very early state of production, since everything indicates that the scripts are neither not finished, or still to be written.