Derek Hedbany

Producing Essentials
February 3, 2014

Individual Pitch Assignment – Motion Picture: Bioshock Infinite

Title: Bioshock Infinite

Medium: Feature Length Motion Picture

Logline: Seeking to repay a debt to the American government, disgraced former Pinkerton
Booker DeWitt is sent to the floating city of Columbia to rescue a captive young woman who
possesses the power to ravage or save the world.

Main Characters:
Booker DeWitt – Emotionally scarred from the violence he committed as member of the
Pinkerton National Detective Agency during his participation at the Battle of Wounded
Knee, he is forced on one last mission to repay his mounting financial debts by finding and
rescuing a young woman and bring her safely out of the city.

Elizabeth Comstock – Held captive for most of her life in Columbia by her protector
Songbird, Elizabeth is young, naïve, but incredibly strong. She possesses the ability to
manipulate holes in the space-time continuum called “tears,” which allows for interactions
with alternate universes. This power is the reason Comstock and the American government
want to exploit Elizabeth.

“Father” Zachary Comstock – Founder and leader of Columbia and considered a prophet,
Comstock leads the fight to recapture Elizabeth and DeWitt.
Songbird – A gigantic robot-like creature that serves as Elizabeth’s protector and guard. He
is programmed to make sure Elizabeth stays in her tower and to eliminate anything that tries
to do otherwise.

Robert and Rosalind Lutece – Quantum physicists responsible for the technology that keeps
Columbia afloat, the two appear at random points throughout DeWitt’s journey in his
assistance. It is later revealed the twins are the same person from alternate realities and
possess the power to communicate and cross through these alternate realities.

Setting:
Columbia is a floating city that works on “quantum levitation,” created by large blimps
and giant balloons. The city was built in 1893, supported by the American government
and was supposed to be a floating world’s fair. Once the government discovered
Comstock designed Columbia as a well-armed warship, the government tried to seize
the city but the entire city seceded from the United States and was untraceable until the
lighthouse was found. Columbia is ruled by a Christian theocratic government, headed
by Comstock, who worship the Founding Fathers of the United States and supports a
white-supremacist hierarchy.

Story Summary:
1912. Booker DeWitt is transported to a lighthouse off the coast of Maine via rowboat
with the instructions to travel to the floating city of Columbia to rescue a young woman
and bring her back to the Pinkerton agency. DeWitt enters a disguised rocket silo
located inside the lighthouse and is subsequently transported to Columbia.
Bearing a scar of “AD” on his hand, Booker is spotted in the city by the authorities
shortly after his arrival and is cited as the “false prophet,” from the “Sodom below” that
Father Comstock warned the public about in his prophecy. Without circumventing
violent interactions, Booker tracks Elizabeth on Monument Island and travels there via
“skyhook” lines that link the floating islands of Columbia. With assistance from the
twins Robert and Rosalind Lutece (who appear periodically throughout the story to
assist DeWitt), he finds Elizabeth confined and convinces her to escape with him under
the guise of getting her off Columbia and taking her to Paris, a city she’s dreamt about
(though never truly revealing his true intentions of taking her to New York City).
Elizabeth warns Booker about the Songbird, her guardian, who will attack the both of
them if they attempt to escape her tower. The two narrowly escape death and the
Songbird. Once they reach an airship (a blimp-type vehicle), Elizabeth discovers Booker
is taking her to New York City and not Paris. She gets angry, which sparks open a “tear,”
a window into an interaction with an alternate reality. Upon discovering this power, the
songbird returns and crashes the airship back into Columbia. Songbird finds and
recaptures Elizabeth.
Trying to recover Elizabeth, Booker begins to unravel the truth about Elizabeth and
Columbia: Once Comstock discovered Elizabeth’s power; he built a place of captivity for
her where her powers could be manipulated or inhibited. He planned on grooming and
manipulating her into bringing destruction to the rest of the world with her space-time
altering powers. Booker is brought into the future via tear by an elderly Elizabeth, who
shows a scene of present New York City under attack by Columbia. She explains that
because he failed to rescue her from Songbird in the past, she suffered decades of
brainwashing and torture, believing in Comstock’s hatred against the rest of the world.
She begs Booker to stop Songbird with a taming instrument that she gives him and
sends him back to his present.
Booker tames the songbird and uses him against Comstock’s forces to reach Elizabeth.
Elizabeth and Booker pursue Comstock in his airship as he prepares an attack against
the cities below. Upon reaching a Comstock in his cabin, he puts up no fight and
demands Elizabeth explain her past to Booker. An enraged Booker drowns the
defenseless Comstock in a nearby baptismal fount.
Having time to harness and explore her powers while Booker was in pursuit of her,
Elizabeth brings herself and Booker through a tear to what appears to be an infinite
series of lighthouses and versions of Booker and Elizabeth moving between them. She
shows how these lighthouses represent the infinite amount of universes that exist
based on their life choices. By entering one of the lighthouses that show them a window
to the past, Elizabeth shows Booker that her powers are a result of quantum physics
experiments committed by the physicist Lutece at the command of Comstock. However
once Lutece discovered Comstock’s plans to wreak havoc on the world with Elizabeth’s
powers, he decided to bring Booker from an alternate reality to the present version
where Columbia exists so Booker could rescue Elizabeth.
Elizabeth explains to Booker after showing this glimpse into the past, that Comstock
will always remain alive in some alternate universes unless they end Comstock at his
birth. Elizabeth takes Booker back in time through another lighthouse to a baptism he
attended in hopes to cleanse his soul of the guilt he felt after his participation in the
Battle of Wounded Knee. Elizabeth explains that while some versions of DeWitt
changed their mind and escaped baptism, pursuing the course of Booker DeWitt that he
now knows, some versions chose to accept the baptism, found religion and were reborn
as the Zachary Comstock. Booker and Elizabeth are then joined by alternate versions of
Elizabeth from other universes and Booker allows them to drown him, preventing the
baptismal choice from ever being made and therefore preventing Comstock from ever
existing. As each version of Elizabeth begins to disappear, the screen cuts to black
before the original Elizabeth disappears. It is unknown if the final Elizabeth fades away
from reality.

Tone: This film is a dramatic, action-filled adventure story with elements of dark satire.
However, there is equal emphasis on the relationship between the two main characters.
The film will deliver the proper amount of attention to the intimate personal and large-
scale dramas.

Themes: Although political, social and religious skepticism may seem to be the large-
scale themes, equal thematic weight applies to notions of free will, fate, and multiple
realities.

Financing: Warner Brother’s would be the ideal financier for this project because they
are produce large-scale blockbuster films that share similar qualities with this project.
Bioshock Infinite has the psychological thrill of Inception, CGI magnitude of Pacific Rim,
and action scale as The Dark Knight, all of which have been financed and distributed by
Warner Brothers (and its partner and joint-venture companies).
Commercial Prospects: The primary audience for this film is middle-class teenage to
adult males ages 15-35. This demographic is mainly reflexive of the average video
gamer and/or action movie attendee. With over $240 million in sales within the first
three months of its release in April 2013, Bioshock Infinite already has a strong fan base
rooted in a large group of gamers.

Budget: This film would request a prospective budget of $180 million. This estimate
has been compiled with referencing movies with have similar scale of demand with
regards to CGI, action and overall project complexity: Pacific Rim ($190 million),
Inception ($160 Million), and The Dark Knight ($185 million).