8 Cancelled Video Game Movies That Would Have Changed Everything

8. BioShock

It's easy to see why Universal thought BioShock would make a great movie. With its layered plot, striking visuals and underwater dystopian setting, it would have been quiet the spectacle on the big screen.

The studio enlisted the services of Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski to bring the world of Rapture to Hollywood, a feat he aimed to pull off with the help of rich CGI environments and a hard R rating.

Verbinski's BioShock would have challenged several preconceptions about video game adaptations with its mature themes, intellectual subject matter and stylish visuals - providing the CG was up to scratch - but it wasn't to be.

The project stalled when Universal expressed concerns about its budget. The studio's top brass were reluctant to throw big bucks behind an R-rated video game adaptation, believing it was too big of a risk.

Verbinski later dropped out of the director's chair and was replaced by 28 Weeks Later filmmaker Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, with a view to staying on as producer, but it wasn't long before the movie sunk into the depths.

Universal has long since washed its hands of the adaptation, and although this version of the project is dead, Verbinski said during a recent Reddit AmA session that the success of the R-rated Deadpool would have made his original BioShock vision possible to achieve today.