Guillermo Del Toro Reveals He Tried to Adapt BioShock Into a Movie, but 'Disastrous' Phone Call Ended the Project Before It Began

Acclaimed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro confirmed that he was involved in early concepts for a BioShock movie, but said the project was ultimately scrapped after a “disastrous” phone call.

Speaking with IGN as part of the IGN30 Icons series, del Toro admitted that he “never” wants to make a video game again — and while he was previously open to adapting existing games into films, his last attempts at doing so ended in disaster.

It’s been long-rumored that del Toro was involved in a movie adaptation of BioShock that never got off the ground. Back in 2017, he even admitted that he’d love to see the game’s story brought to the silver screen after a previous attempt, with Gore Verbinski attached, never got made.

Years later, he has officially confirmed his relationship with a BioShock adaptation, though it never saw the light of day — and it seems there was some drama behind its premature demise.

“You know, I tried,” he told us when asked if he’d ever want to make a film adaptation of a game. “We had a very contentious call about a couple of games. I find that the dynamics of a video game are very different than a movie. They may be cinematically similar in terms of the camera moving and this and that, but the storytelling is very different, because you're not solving puzzles. You're not assembling.

“When we made the structure for Insane, we created what I call a mandala. You have to give the illusion of an infinite sandbox and you lead audiences to the right or to the left through their ‘own decisions,’ but you sort of have to corner them. So it's a very different thing.

“So adapting it, BioShock, we had a couple of calls. They are probably one of the most disastrous calls I've ever had. So no, f**k no.”

While he didn’t go into detail about what made these calls so “contentious” and “disastrous,” the conversations seem to have put a sour taste in his mouth — which is a shame, because a BioShock movie with del Toro at the helm sounds like the best thing since sliced bread.

It’s one of his favorite games, after all, a fact that he also shared with us in this same interview. It’s one of several titles that he listed off the cuff, though not the most surprising one; that title goes to Angry Birds, which del Toro says he plays almost every day.

And although Del Toro has been involved with several major video games over the years (PT, Death Stranding), he told us he’s hesitant to make his own games after Insane, his planned trilogy of dark, cinematic games, never got released.

“Never again,” he told us. “No, not at all — we developed Insane, and then that went down. A lot of the ideas later, I saw stuff that was done in other video games that was similar. And I went, ‘Well, somebody did it. That's great.’ But we were aiming really high.”

Speaking of PT and Death Stranding, The Pan’s Labyrinth creator has expressed no shortage of love for Kojima’s games, calling him a “pure artist” and admitting that the grand majority of PT was entirely Kojima's idea.

“I mean, I'm glad to get on the ride for free, but everything that ended up being PT, it was him,” he said. “…I love that man. He's one of those guys you meet that you go, you might as well be in the Renaissance. You are in front of a pure artist and he cares about one thing, stories. That's it.”

Our full, extended interview with Guillermo del Toro is available to watch now. If you're hungry for more interviews, you can check out a previous episode of the IGN30 Icons series, where we chatted with Ken Levine, creator of famed games like System Shock 2 and its spiritual successor, BioShock.