Back in February, we learned that Netflix had plucked the rights to the huge-selling BioShock game franchise out of development limbo and pledged to make a movie based on it. Things have moved on apace since then, as Hunger Games veteran directing Francis Lawrence is aboard to call the shots, while Jungle Cruise writer Michael Green will tackle the script.
The BioShock series of games from 2K has sold more than 39 million copies worldwide and sprang to life in 2007. In that original title, gamers played as Jack, the lone survivor of a plane crash over the Atlantic Ocean in the 1960s. He discovers an underwater dystopia called Rapture, which was created by an eccentric business magnate Andrew Ryan. Rapture had seen better days, and Jack must battle a variety of enemies, like the super-powered, drug-addicted Splicers and massive, diving-suit-clad Big Daddies, to escape. However, Jack’s own mental state and the origins of his plane crash are far from what they originally seem…
A sequel, released 2010, put players in the giant boots of a Big Daddy, while 2013's BioShock Infinite took place in the steampunk, airborne city of Columbia in 1912.
Despite their huge popularity, the path to a BioShock movie has been a rocky one, with the likes of Gore Verbinski trying and failing to make it. You can read our piece on the tortured history of attempted adaptations here.
And while Lawrence is best known these days for his Games work (he's currently shooting prequel movie The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, due out next year), he's also brought us movies such as Constantine and I Am Legend.