We’ve only heard a few big announcements over the past couple of years in regards to a movie adaptation of the immensely popular video game title, BioShock. It’s been almost a year since the last update, but producer Gore Verbinski is back to remind us that the movie is still very real, and slowly making its way toward our eyes.

It all started in May of 2008 when we found out that Verbinski, best known for helming the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, would be directing the BioShock movie. The news was pretty exciting when considering how much experience Verbinski has with water-heavy productions — water being a crucial element to the underwater world of Rapture. Unfortunately, the cost of making BioShock into a movie was starting to balloon (around $160 million), and filming overseas to cut costs became the new gameplan. Verbinski, with other projects in the works including his animated film Rango, decided that this schedule would not work and had to drop out of the film.

The first trailer for Gore Verbinksi‘s new animated movie Rango has been released online. The movie features Johnny Depp in the lead role, a lizard named Rango who’s struggling with an identity crisis.

This is just a teaser trailer, but you’ll get a good feel of the movie. The animation is solid and you’ll hear a little of the not-so-Johnny-Depp-sounding lizard.

The thing that will really stand out to some fans is the nod to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the famed author Hunter S. Thompson. Depp played a Thompson-esq character in Fear and Loathing, and will again in the upcoming book adaptation, The Rum Diaries.

Find yourself and head on over to the other side to check out the first teaser trailer for Rango.

The feature film adaptation of instant classic video game BioShock has been in and out of the news multiple times with the hiring of Gore Verbinski to direct, and then followed by his unfortunate departure and the announcement that Juan Carlos Fresnadillo would be taking his place.

Until we finally get to see what amazing or abominable paths they take with that live-action movie, we could once only imagine what a living and breathing Rapture might look like. Well, thankfully there’s some pretty talented artists out there on our planet and one of them, named Harrison Krix, has done a damn fine job in helping to show us this real BioShock. Krix and his Volpin Props (Head here to see a bunch of amazingly detailed props) created a fantastic replication of a Big Daddy, added a Little Sister, and brought them to Dragon*Con. While that was all well and fun, it wasn’t enough, and they went ahead and set up an arrangement to shoot some photographs with Dim Horizons at the Georgia Aquarium. Once they were finally able to get in for the shoot, the result was a very cool set of images of the Big Daddy and Little Sister in a tunnel surrounded by water and ocean life resembling the dark world of Rapture.

Click over to the other side to take a peek at some of these BioShock photographs. You can head over to the respective sites for more images. Also added below is a video from Dragon*Con where you can see the Big Daddy’s drill in action.

The ups and downs of turning the instant classic video game BioShock into a successful film adaptation are continuing right along. It’s being reported that Universal has chosen Juan Carlos Fresnadillo to replace Gore Verbinski as director on the movie.

Excitement encased the world of geekdom when it was first revealed that Verbinski would be directing the water-heavy BioShock after his impressive water work on the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. Verbinski actually stepped away from the proposed fourth Pirates flick in order to helm the challenging video game adaptation. When a swelling price tag ($160 Million) saw the project placed on the back burner in order to figure out a new, more cost-friendly attack strategy, it became apparent that shooting in an overseas location might be the best option. Verbinski, having other projects going on, was unable to meet the scheduling demands, and thus, stepped away.

In one of those very interesting and very unexpected announcements, it appears as though Rob Marshall will be the man to replace Gore Verbinski for the fourth installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Reports state that Disney had been looking at many different directors, but for the moment, unless the bottom completely falls out on this deal, Rob Marshall is the guy.

For those of you who aren’t so familiar with Mr. Marshall, the announcement comes as a shock because the director is best known for his musical work. He’s only got a few jobs on his resume, but the big one is the 2002 Best Picture winner Chicago, which starred Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, and Renee Zellweger. After that, he moved on to a less-musical period drama in Memoirs of a Geisha — which also pulled in some Oscar gold. His next due film is another musical based on an earlier screenplay written by the legendary Federico Fellini. The film is called Nine and it has a juggernaut cast including Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Kate Hudson, Dame Judi Dench, and Sophia Loren.