Take Two announces a film based on last year’s trippy masterpiece.

The Internet has been abuzz with news that a BioShock film is very much in the works. Further adding to the gaming community’s collective hard-on is speculation by a Take Two exec that the movie could conceivably “be released along BioShock 3.” So for the dozen of you that didn’t get the memo, we have a newborn franchise in our midst.

Word on the street is that the project is in very capable hands, with Gore Verbinski, of Pirates of the Caribbean fame, taking charge. No, the stench of Uwe Boll will not taint our beloved baby.

Be that as it may, I am not without my reservations.

BioShock has been touted by many as the most compelling piece of evidence to date that video games can serve an artistic purpose on the same level as motion pictures. The game is rife with questions of morality, human nature, Randian Objectivism, and other philosophical bullshit that I don’t feel like looking up on Wikipedia. It is the foundation upon which meaningful, thought-provoking works shall be built.

Now contrast this with the track record of games that have been converted to movies. Super Mario Bros. Mortal Kombat. Street Fighter. It’s a never-ending parade of embarrassment. Hell, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within pulled off the impressive task of having nothing to with Final Fantasy and having nothing to do with being a good movie in one fell swoop. One can understand Roger Ebert’s doubts as to the artistic merits of games.

Granted, not all game-based movies were catastrophic failures. The Resident Evil films were somewhat entertaining (if you can look past the fact that they completely failed to deliver the overall feel, and as such, the very essence of their source material). The film adaptation of Silent Hill wasn’t so bad, either. Of course, this is assuming that an hour into the film, you got up to use the restroom, whereupon you were shoved into the third stall from the end by a burly man, ass-raped furiously, and went home in tears, thus missing the ending. That’s what I mean by “wasn’t so bad.” You know, just to clear things up.

In the end, we must be careful what we wish for. A BioShock film has the potential to be incredible. It could serve as proof positive that we are not merely gamers, but aficionados of something that is of great value to society.

Or we could have Keanu Reeves hamming it up as Andrew Ryan.

This blog article should be recognized as the sole opinion of the editor and does not necessarily reflect GotNext’s official position on the subject.