Universal Puts “Wildly Over-Budget” Gore Verbinski Pic ‘Bioshock’ On Hold For Now

COMMENTS (7)

• Too bad, sounds like the perfect man for the job, but I can see how it would be ruinously expensive (that isn’t the same thing as ‘over budget,’ but sometimes denial is nothing more than a river in Egypt). Underwater, zombies… a very heavy Watchmen-like plot doesn’t necessarily help.

  Comment by jamie — Friday April 24, 2009 @ 6:57pm PDT  Reply to this post

• The death knell for any project. It really is time for commercial directors to take a hard look at their budgets. Break down the content of the material to its essentials. I love David Fincher, but damnit there was just no justification for making a movie like ‘Panic Room’ for over 70 million dollars when it only takes place in one location. Sam Raimi on Spidey 3 — 270 million for its production budget alone. Where did the money go? Its the Michael Cimino effect rearing its ugly head again. Love him or hate him but Michael Bay made Transformers for 150 mill, and shot it in LA to boot. He budgeted accordingly and used what he needed, took out the fat and got his essentials. With over budgeting these turds are just reinforcing the studio policy of middling into their projects, i.e. Tom Rothman and the Fox brigade.

  Comment by Alboone — Saturday April 25, 2009 @ 6:42am PDT  Reply to this post

• It’s a videogame, not a comic book, too. And videogames don’t translate into the same sort of instant-automatic opening-weekend name recognition as “Spiderman” or “Some Guy in Tights 2″.

  Comment by S — Saturday April 25, 2009 @ 7:42am PDT  Reply to this post

• Surprising for Universal to act like this. I remember back in 2002 when they commissioned an entire cast including Denzel Washington to topline ‘American Gangster’ with Antoine Fuqua directing. Pay or play deals all around. They sunk god only knows into pre-production then cancelled the project. 5 years later Denzel was rehired for the same project, paid his fee AGAIN and Ridley Scott came onto direct.

  Talk about over budget. Uni doesn’t understand how big the demographic of fanboys there truly is. If they’re terrified due to the poor performance of Doom four years ago…well that script was a piece of shit as it moved into production. One can thank Wesley Strick for that. There was no hope. Too many egos of cooks in the kitchen on that one. Cough cough John Wells, Di Bonaventura cough cough.

  Comment by Tyler Perry is the Anti-Christ — Saturday April 25, 2009 @ 9:28am PDT  Reply to this post

• Hey the straits of Mackinaw would be cool for bio shock, and of course you get that tax credit and great fudge.

  Comment by 8moviesfiveplays — Monday April 27, 2009 @ 9:21am PDT  Reply to this post

• Really TPAC? With the numbers/pre release fan boy wank for movies like The Spirit, Watchmen, Grindhouse and Snakes on a Plane. Isn’t the fan boy specific film dead? It seemed Sin City 2 and 3 were a lock a few months ago.

  Comment by ws — Monday April 27, 2009 @ 9:27am PDT  Reply to this post

• Wait… Snakes on a Plane? That was just a pathetic attempt by a studio to create buzz via internet stunts. It was no surprise that it fizzled, as there was never any “there” there.

  What is your definition of a “fan boy” movie? I think it means based on material that has a track record in another medium, specifically comics or video games. Not just any old crap that gets buzz.

  I guess you could argue that Tarantino and Rodriguez are brands that give Grindhouse a fan boy aspect, but in that case, it’s hard to say the trend is dead with Inglorious Bastards getting made.

  Comment by huh? — Monday April 27, 2009 @ 2:13pm PDT  Reply to this post