BioShock movie could be back in development

After being shut down altogether several years ago, the BioShock movie may again be moving forward, as evidenced by several domain names registered last month by Sony Pictures.

The domain names, as found by Kotaku, include bioshock-movie.com, bioshock-movie.net, and bio-shock.net. All three list Sony Pictures in their registration information. Sony was never publicly involved with previous attempts to develop a BioShock film, but these registrations suggest it may now be looking to do so.

Back in 2008, Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski was set to direct a BioShock film being financed by Universal Pictures. A year later, reports circulated that Verbinski was thinking of backing out, which he did after production was halted due to concerns regarding the budget and the R rating Verbinski wanted. 28 Weeks Later director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo was then tapped to direct, but the movie again fell apart, with BioShock creative director Ken Levine stating last year that he was responsible for ultimately axing the project.

"And so they brought another director in, and I didn't really see the match there," Levine said. "Take-Two is one of those companies that gives a lot of trust to their creative people, and so they said to me, 'If you want to kill it Ken, kill it.' And I killed it."

"Which was weird, having been a screenwriter going around begging to rewrite any script to being in a position where you're killing a movie that you worked so much on," he added. "It was saying, 'You know what? I don't need to compromise.' I had the [BioShock] world, and I didn't what to see it done in a way I didn't think was right."

Kotaku raises the possibility that Levine himself could be involved with writing a script for the movie. He is currently working on a script for the new Logan's Run movie, and he has said he would consider working on a BioShock screenplay following the completion of BioShock Infinite.

The studio Levine founded, Irrational Games--developer of the original BioShock and BioShock Infinite--was shut down in February. Levine and a select number of employees planned to start a "new venture" under the 2K Games umbrella that "focus[ed] entirely on replayable narrative." The BioShock property, meanwhile, remains in the hands of 2K.

Earlier this year, concept artist Jim Martin published concept art he had created for the BioShock movie, providing us with some sense of what had been envisioned when Universal was involved with the movie's production.