After BioShock was released in 2007, it was heralded by critics and players alike for its great story and gameplay. Ever since then, a film has been in rumored development but never seems to get past that stage. With film and television adaptations of popular video games popping up more frequently ⏤ like the upcoming Uncharted and The Last of Us ⏤ surely it’s time for BioShock adaptation as well.
The story of the game revolves around the underwater world of Rapture and the society that has been built there. A man named Jack crashes a plane near the entrance of Rapture, and once he descends into the depths, he encounters a man named Atlas who pits him against Andrew Ryan, the head of Rapture, so they can both find their way home ⏤ or so it seems.
The strength of BioShock lies in its story, world-building, and characters, so we couldn’t resist visualizing the game as a film and compiling our dream cast. Here’s who we’d pick for the key players in the event that a film adaptation got the green light.
Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack
Jake Gyllenhaal possesses the unique ability to play a leading man who can turn on a dime at pretty much any moment and would therefore be a great choice for Jack. He would bring a weight to the moral decisions the character would have to make and watching him cope with what he finds out at the end of the film would be a delight. The great thing about this casting is that BioShock is a first-person shooter, meaning we don’t actually see Jack. Therefore we would need a bit of an everyman in the role, and based on the psychological thrillers that Gyllenhaal is known for, he would do quite well in that capacity.
Jon Hamm as Andrew Ryan
The dapper idealist Andrew Ryan was modeled off of Vincent Price and based on the likes of Howard Hughes and Walt Disney. Call it typecast, but Jon Hamm would be perfect for this role. Famous for portraying Don Draper in Mad Men, Hamm is good at playing charming men you love to hate and hate to love. Not to mention his character on Mad Men was known for making convincing monologues, which is something Andrew Ryan would have to do throughout the film.
Tom Hardy as Atlas/Frank Fontaine
Tom Hardy would be brilliant as Atlas and even better as Frank Fontaine. As the Irish voice of Atlas, Hardy would need to be charming and convincing, but once he reveals himself as Fontaine, he would need to be smarmy, something the Venom and Legend actor could pull off nicely. Also, Hardy rarely plays the man you outright hate./ Even when he’s the villain of a story, he remains somewhat likable, which is something Atlas/Frank Fontaine would need to have.
Cillian Murphy as Sander Cohen
Sander Cohen, a renowned artist in the world of Rapture, could also be classified as the craziest person there. Cillian Murphy would be brilliant as the flamboyant Cohen, who murders people and puts them in plaster as a morbid version of a sculpture. Murphy bears some resemblance to the video game character and his performance in Batman Begins is enough to prove that he could play an outright psychopath. He might be a little young for the role, but we’re confident he could still pull it off.
Tilda Swinton as Brigid Tenenbaum
The geneticist with a German accent, Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum would be best played by Tilda Swinton. The actress, known for her range and the depth of her characters, would be perfect as the morally ambiguous doctor, especially in her more menacing moments. Her morals in the game are simple: she just wants to protect the little sisters. But the audience shouldn’t know that, nor should they know if she is antagonistic towards Jack, because she doesn’t know what Jack does to the little sisters. This cold attitude would inevitably be executed masterfully by the actress, who played the White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and showed her true emotional range in the shocking and disturbing We Need to Talk About Kevin.
BD Wong as Yi Suchong
This one is definitely typecasting, but in the last 20 years, whenever BD Wong shows up on the screen, he is usually playing an evil doctor. He would be perfect for Dr. Yi Suchong, the creator of some of the plasmids that are the lifeblood of Rapture. His roles in Jurassic Park as Dr. Henry Wu and as Dr. Hugo Strange in the television series Gotham are certainly convincing enough that he could easily pull off the role of a crazed scientist.
David Dastmalchian as J.S. Steinman
Dr. J.S. Steinman, the crazed cosmetic surgeon who wants to make everyone beautiful, would best be played by David Dastmalchian. Dastmalchian, who played Polka Dot Man in The Suicide Squad, would be able to capture the sheer insanity of the character. It’s a perfect part for him, as it wouldn’t be large but would certainly be memorable, and after his great performances in The Dark Knight and Ant-Man, we know he’d be able to pull this role off with aplomb.
Dave Bautista as Big Daddy
There’s every chance that the icon of the franchise, Big Daddy, would be played by multiple people ⏤ after all, they’re just men in diving suits ⏤ but if we were to settle on just one, Dave Bautista would be a solid choice. No stranger to playing the big man in a film, Bautista has starred as Drax in multiple Marvel films and Glossu Rabban Harkonnen in Dune. He also played Hinx in Spectre, whose physicality might be the most matched to that of the Big Daddy. You can certainly picture Bautista in a diving suit slamming Jake Gyllenhaal around Rapture, which is why he’s a shoe-in for the role.
Bioshock is an exciting franchise and would certainly require the A-List talent mentioned on this list if filmmakers were to adapt it for the big screen. We can only hope that it earns its place alongside other popular video game adaptations in the very near future.
