Introduction from director Andy Jarosz
Adapting BioShock into a film is about as difficult as it gets. The game has essentially no basis in reality, we can't just film in a quarry and claim its another planet.
Committing to a BioShock film meant we'd be comitting to recreating every aspect of the world. From the locations to the lighting, to the props and costumes, even the hairstyles and shoes. We'd have to think about everything, we wouldn't get anything "for free."
That challenge was exactly the reason why we decided to tackle it. Since 2022 I have run SMASH Virtual Production Studios, the largest LED volume stage in Chicago. Virtual production was originally created for The Mandalorian, and merges high-end graphics with realtime 3D camera tracking to create seamless backdrops on massive LED video walls.
This technology is nearly tailor-made to bring Rapture to life, and our team talked about a BioShock movie even when we first opened. Despite that, it took nearly 4 years and dozens of projects for us to feel like the technology and our skillset was developed enough to do the franchise justice.
Of course, this is also riding on the coattails of a 15 year career in the film industry working in practical effects on union projects. That career that has taught me more than I could have ever imagined about filmmaking, given me opportunities I never thought I'd have, and connected me with some of the most talented people I've ever met. People who I'm privileged enough to be able to call my friends, and who went above and beyond to elevate this film into something truely special.
With that, let's dive into exactly what it took to bring 1959 to life.
Go Big Or Go Home
It would have been so easy to just make a movie about two people talking in a dark room, give them a blue backlight, and call it a day. Unfortunately, I think we might be cursed, because myself and creative partner Kevin Hamilton appear to be literally incapable of dreaming on that scale (We grew up on Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, which probably has something to do with it.)
If we were going to make a BioShock movie, we were going to make the BioShock movie. We didn't want regrets about "what could have been."
That really only left one event to center the film around: The 1959 New Years bombing of the Kasmir Restarurant. But it didn't stop there, and once we started building that scene, it just kind of snowballed into what would become seven unique locations...like I said, we might be cursed.
Building Rapture
Shooting in an LED volume means creating the virtual environments that are displayed onscreen. While the system powering these visuals is a game engine, Unreal Engine 5, it's not as simple as just porting the game levels over to it.
One reason is because the graphics standards of 2007 are very different than modern ones, but the larger reason is because a good game level does not necessarily make a good film location. For virtual production specifically, the size of the environment becomes an important factor that needs to be considered early on so we know what practical set elements will be needed.
August 2025, reviewing an early version of the Kasmir.
Ultimately, this meant Kevin essentially created a custom remaster of BioShock in Unreal 5, complete with new highpoly models, 8K textures, and all fully modular to facilitate filming. You can see some of his work on the Explore Rapture page, and needless to say, it was surreal to actually be in filming in Rapture "for real."
Recreating everything from scratch had a creative benefit as well, since it allowed us to intrepret the translation from game to screen. The game lives larger-than-life in the memory of those who have played it, and justrecreating the game levels verbatim would have ultimately lead to a dissapointing result. It was important to not just do the game justice, but to live up to that epic feeling that viewers would expect on the big screen.
Testing and More Testing
Throughout this process, we were constantly shooting demos to verify the quality of the virtual environments, run VFX tests, and discover how best to shoot the film. Virtual production sometimes has a repuation of being creatively limiting as it requires you to plan scenes ahead of time, but this testing process created a creative cycle that really challenged that notion.
As I wrote the script, Kevin would build the environments for the scenes. Shooting tests would reveal a cool angle we wanted to feature, or an opportunity to add animation for dynamic lighting, or simply that we needed to reconsider our blocking. As I got to explore the world we were creating, I discovered more scenes within it, and Kevin was able to respond to my constant "Wouldn't it be cool if we did...?" requests by opening up the world even further.
Early scene test
Making the Movie Before We Made the Movie
Close to production, we spent two days shooting a nearly complete previs of the entire film. Since we have unlimited to access to the studio and locations, this was a no-brainer luxury that proved invaluable to focus the work and hone in on exactly what it was going to take to shoot this movie.
These previs videos served as our storyboards, and were sent to the cast and crew as reference for how we would be covering the scenes. It was also informative from a story perspective and directly lead to several changes in the plot, including cutting an entire character as we realized we simply wouldn't have enough time to film everything!
This time was also used to explore the look and visual style of the film with cinematographer Matt Brown. It was important to us to be authentic to the game, but it was just as important that the movie felt like a movie. That led to us finding the line between lighting that was stylized like the game, but naturalistic enough to be belivable for the film. It also informed lens and filtation choice, as highlight bloom is a core part of the look of BioShock.
Creating the World of Rapture
The virtual environments are just one aspect of the film. Physical setpieces and props are still critical to creating a fully immersive world that feels truely plausible.
From the old Fontaine Fisheries crates in the bathysphere dock, down to the watches worn by the cast, our intrepid art department ensured every detail was found or fabricated accurately to breathe life into the set.
We even sourced genuine vintage wardrobe for the actors for extra authenticity.
The Story
The script for 1959 was far more of a challenge to write than originally expected. We had a few goals with the story: It should be enjoyable even to those who haven't played the game, it should be as lore accurate as possible, and it should feel large enough to be worth the viewers time, but still be able to be fully contained in a 20 minute film.
These requirements, along with utilizing our preferred locations, made creating the story of 1959 quite difficult!
There is nothing small about BioShock, characters are often larger-than-life and everything is intricately interwoven. It's difficult to inject a small-scale story in among all the insanity happening in Rapture.
To help with this, we borrowed a character from the Burial At Sea DLC: Samantha Kemp. We built on her backstory and fleshed her character out to create a fully rounded villian (spoilers) and utilized the bombing of the Kashmir to provide innate tension.
For our protagonist, we created an original character, Val Hargreve. With so many important figures in the world of BioShock, we wanted to explore someone who was in proximity to that level of power. Val is the the lead custodian for Ryan Industries, a position which gives him direct access to the cities elite, and that would make it easy for anyone to convince themselves of their own self-importance.
We also knew we wanted to end with an action scene, which meant getting our characters out of the Kashmir and into somewhere that could facilitate that. This also opened up the opportunity for a cameo of a well-known character to provide even more gravitas to the situation.
The answer, as always, was to consider the characters and what they want in this moment. When viewed from this angle, the conflict we were looking for became immediately apparent and the characters became far more compelling.
Shooting 1959
This is where pre-production ends, and the actual shooting of the film begins.
There is so much more to say--from casting, stunts, VFX and more, but alas, this is where we'll end for now. Stay tuned for more after the film releases!
