Netflix’s ‘BioShock’ Hooks its Director, ‘Horizon’ Series Enlists ‘Umbrella Academy’ Showrunner
Netflix is doubling down on big video game adaptations as they’ve found the lead creatives for their BioShock and Horizon projects.
Today we’ve learned about two major steps forward for Netflix’s upcoming BioShock film and Horizon series. The streamer has been pushing hard for more projects based on video games, especially when it comes to animated series, but their recent efforts aim to bring famous gaming worlds into the live-action realm.
First, Deadline has discovered the BioShock film, which almost got made with Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski more than a decade ago, has enlisted Hunger Games veteran Francis Lawrence to lead the immersion into the underwater utopia of Rapture. He’s currently busy with The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, but that project should be done by late 2023, which gives screenwriter Michael Green (Logan, Blade Runner 2049) plenty of time to cook up a script which can please both 2K Games and Netflix.
Here’s the basic synopsis of the first game, which is most likely the one being adapted:
BioShock takes place in 1960, where Jack, the sole survivor of a plane crash in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, discovers the entrance to the recluse underwater city of Rapture, at the end of a civil war which left most of it in disrepair. Finding himself trapped in a strange and dangerous dystopia, and with only a mysterious man called Atlas helping him, Jack has no choice but to fight for his survival against Rapture’s mutated and monstrous denizens, using all types of weapons and genetic enhancements, as he searches for a way to return to the surface.
Meanwhile, there’s also movement surrounding the series that will adapt PlayStation’s blockbuster first-party title Horizon: Zero Dawn. Via Netflix’s Tudum site, we’ve learned that Umbrella Academy creator and showrunner Steve Blackman is ready to captain Netflix and PlayStation Productions’ behemoth. The Umbrella Academy is ending with season 4, and Blackman has already started thinking about Horizon, which will be an entirely different beast. Here’s what he said regarding their approach to the source material:
Horizon Zero Dawn is an exceptionally well-crafted game with wonderful characters not often seen in the rank-and-file of the gaming world. Guerrilla Games has created an incredibly lush and vivid world of man and machine who find themselves on a collision course to oblivion. Their salvation comes in the form of a young female warrior named Aloy, who has no idea she’s the key to saving the world. Suffice it to say, yes, Aloy will be a main character in our story. My writing partner on this, Michelle Lovretta, and I are thrilled to be able to expand this remarkable IP into a series for all types of viewers.
Without giving anything major away, the plot of Horizon: Zero Dawn, the first game, follows Aloy, a young red-haired hunter, in a familiar yet mysterious world overrun by animal-like machines and populated by a number of wildly different human nations and tribes. The ambitious series is part of PlayStation Productions’ massive push to adapt their library of games into high-profile films and TV series.
Francisco J. Ruiz is that guy who has watched Jurassic Park a thousand times and loves Star Wars. His hunger for movies is only matched by his love for video games. He graduated in English Studies from the University of Malaga, in Spain. As he keeps writing about what he enjoys (and doesn’t) for websites all over, he’s continuing his studies.
