Yes, yes, game movies suck. Everybody knows that! So whenever a big time video game is turned into a big time movie, all we can do is grit our teeth and hope that it doesn't suck too much. When it was announced that Bioshock was going to be a movie, many thought, hey, this might have a chance to make the cinematic leap in a positive way. The story and the universe do seem very amicable to film. Then it was announced that Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski would be helming the project and the wind was taken out of everyone's sails. Sure, he turned a Disneyland ride into a movie, but as the franchise continued on, his ability (or rather inability) to tell a proper story became readily apparent. But Ken Levine isn't going to get in Verbinski's way while the director and writer John Logan. Rather, Levine describes his role:
My job there is to be a friend to Gore and John, be a resource for them and kick ideas around with them. At the end of the day John's the writer and Gore's the director. I'm not the traffic cop. They've been so respectful of the material and they're fans of the material — neither of these guys have to make any movie, they're both hugely successful in their fields, and for a guy like Gore Verbinski to go and make a Bioshock movie, that's a choice he makes. He's not in a place where he doesn't get to pick what assignments come to him. Same with John. So my job is not to watch over them, it's to say "hey guys, what can I do to help?" We've been talking some and it seems to me that these guys really are the right guys to be doing this.
Let's hope so, Ken. Let's hope so. Ken Levine interview - Part 1 [OXM]