While playing through BioShock, many people saw a world that was ripe for a movie adaptation. A cool underwater city, destroyed by unrest, with late 50's-early 60's tones? Crazy people, big guns, and magic powers?
To be fair, I don't know that I was one of the people who wanted a film. The game told a fantastic story that, by definition, a film couldn't match, and I was happy to leave it on the small screen. It's looking like that might be happening anyway.
The movie was meant to be directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who previously directed 28 Weeks Later, and Gore Verbinski was attached as Producer. Originally, Gore was planning to direct the film himself, but got discouraged when nobody would fund the film at an R rating, despite the fact that the game is rated M and likely wouldn't make sense as a PG-13 film, but I digress.
While speaking to IndieWire, Fresnadillo had this to say about BioShock: "To be honest, by now, I'm completely out of that, and developing other stuff. Right now it's on hold. The studio and the video game company, they have to reach some kind of agreement about the budget and the rating."
So as of now, we won't be getting a BioShock movie unless some studio is willing to spend the money. Perhaps it's for the best.