As you know, Universal Pictures is making a big screen adaptation of the videogame Bioshock. Up until this point, Gore Verbinski had been slated for the director’s chair. He had stepped down from directing the fourth Pirates of the Carribbean film to take on the Bioshock project.

With the budget of the Bioshock movie passing 160 million with no apparent stop, Universal shut down production.  The project is looking to shoot outside of the United States and possibly rework the script.

Verbinski chimed in on the subject when asked by the Los Angeles Times

“The bottom line is it has to shoot out of the States for budget reasons and my schedule may be prohibitive. There’s a great script and a really interesting cast. It really comes down to the financial model now. Big movies are just not being shot in the States. I’m weighing whether I can physically go the U.K. or Australia or one of those other places with a tax rebate for a year-and-a-half.”

Universal has in fact moved the project overseas and unfortunately, Verbinski could not commit to the scheduling, according to Variety, due to his commitment to direct the animated Paramount film Rango.

Enter Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, writer/director of 28 Weeks Later.  He might seem like an odd choice considering he's only directed one major Hollywood release. Who knows if Fresnadillo will stay on the project but one can only hope somebody sticks around. Switching the directors again might result in a shoddy production and Bioshock truly deserves more. John Logan (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Bats) wrote the current script.