A few years ago, an adaptation of the popular graphic novel Watchmen came out in theaters. While reviews were mixed, it was undeniable that the film was a failure financially. The budget was $130 million, and it made $185 million total (which seems good, until you realize that to be a success, a movie needs to make double its budget to recoup advertising and other costs). While the cause of Watchmen’s failure can be debated, one potential aspect was that it was a dark movie tonally, with an R rating, and a big budget one at that. You would think that maybe it would put a studio off from doing a darker high-budget movie for a year or so. What you may not realize is that Watchmen’s affects are still being felt. To prove it: the Bioshock movie. The popular video game adaptation had a director (Gore Verbinski), and the film was in production. But it soon fell into development hell, and has now been confirmed as dead by Bioshock game designer Ken Levine. What happened? Well, in his words:
“There was a deal in place, and it was in production at Universal…My theory is that Gore [Verbinski] wanted to make a hard R film – which is like a 17/18 plus, where you can have blood and naked girls. Well, I don’t think he wanted naked girls. But he wanted a lot of blood. Then ‘Watchmen’ came out, and it didn’t do well for whatever reason. The studio then got cold feet about making an R-rated $200 million film, then they said what if it was an $80 million film – and Gore didn’t want to make an $80 million film…”
Sadly, it doesn’t look like a Bioshock film will be happening anytime soon. So what’s the lesson learned here? If something similar to what you love comes out, give it a view. You never know how it will affect the odds of another film getting made.
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