Universal has signed a deal to adapt the hit SF video game Bioshock into a film under director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean), Variety reported. Verbinski is also attached to produce, and Aviator writer John Logan is in talks to pen the screenplay. Bioshock publisher Take-Two Interactive is getting a multimillion-dollar advance against gross points on the movie deal, which is believed to be the biggest video-game-to-movie deal since 2005, when Universal and Fox signed on to the since-aborted Halo movie adaptation. Bioshock takes place in an underwater city based on the free market principles of Ayn Rand, but things have gone disastrously wrong. Players control a pilot who crash-lands at a secret entrance to the city, called Rapture, and is drawn into a power struggle, during which he discovers that his will is not as free as he'd thought. Verbinski told the trade paper that Rapture's art-deco design and visually arresting characters--such as the mechanical Big Daddys, who protect genetically mutated girls called Little Sisters--inspired him to see the game as a film. Though no release date is even being targeted, Verbinski said he plans to start preproduction as soon as Logan's script is finished and approved by all involved. (Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.)