Opinion: Netflix's BioShock Movie Should be a Prequel, Not an Adaptation

ign.com:

After years of false starts and being trapped in development hell, it seems the BioShock movie is finally becoming a reality. Netflix has snatched up the rights to this iconic sci-fi shooter franchise, and the movie now has a director in The Hunger Games' Francis Lawrence.

Unfortunately, if the past several decades have taught us anything, it's that great gaming source material doesn't automatically translate to great movies. If Netflix wants to escape the video game movie curse, there's one critical rule to follow. The BioShock movie shouldn't be a direct adaptation of the original game. Instead, it should be a prequel. Here's why a prequel movie stands a better chance of doing justice to the games.

The nice thing about the original BioShock is that it leaves plenty of room to explore the events leading up to the game. BioShock is set in 1960, with a plane crash survivor named Jack stumbling across the underwater city of Rapture. Once intended to be a monument to man's ingenuity and unlimited potential, Rapture has instead become a dilapidated ruin infested by Splicers - humans addicted to a rare, gene-altering substance known as Adam. BioShock becomes the story of Jack's struggle to navigate Rapture, uncover the secrets behind its decaying walls and come to terms with his own connection to the city and its founder, Andrew Ryan.

While the game slowly fills in the backstory of Rapture through dialogue and various recordings left behind by survivors, players never really get a chance to see the city in its prime or the terrible massacre on New Year's Eve 1958. That's where the movie can come in. Rather than focus on Jack himself, the movie could center around Ryan and other key figures who helped make this impossible city