Those of you who have been reading this site for a few years will remember the Halo Wars. All the debate and hustle revolving around Peter Jackson and then unknown effects artist Neill Blomkamp in control of Halo and then letting ego drive the project into obscurity.
But now it seems that Microsoft is still interested in making money and is still slowly anticipating a Halo feature film.
RamaScreen quotes Frank OConnor, Director of Development at Microsoft:
“We’re still interested in making an excellent ‘Halo’ movie,”
“We’ve created an awful lot of documentation and materials to support a feature film. We have a good idea of what kind of story we want to tell, but won’t move on it until there’s a great reason to do it. We’re in no particular hurry.”
Maybe they are just waiting for video game movies to not suck?
Back when Peter Jackson was asking for WAY too big of a budget to then throw it in the lap of then unproven Neill Blomkamp, I could see Microsoft hedging their bet. Video game movies have not notoriously been money rakers so they had to keep the budget modest, but Halo is just too big to do on the cheap.
Ironically Blomkamp rose to fame making an impressive looking sci-fi without an insanely massive budget. So why was Jackson asking for such a big budget? After District 9 people were wondering if Blomkamp would get his shot to make the film, but PJ and pal have walked on this already. Four scripts are being tossed around by Alex Garland, Sutard Bettie DV Beiss and Josh Olson. But they are in no hurry to pick one just yet.
But I do find it less than subtle that Microsoft name drops a Halo film (likely to track online buzz) now that Halo Reach is at a fever pitch among the fans.
It will happen, but on their own terms.
I think in order for this movie to be a success you have to have the right mix in the Main Character, Master Chief…Some of the large wrestling types who can act decently will work. I think a Steve Austin or John Cena would be a good start. Don’t rule out Dwayne Johnson either. He shows good versatility as well. However, from the books that give you good background on the Chiefs character hes a stone cold soldier and I think Steve Austin could pull it off best.
I personally hate the shallow story line of the halo series (I won’t dwell about the stagnet gameplay) and think if they wanted to make a movie they would need to bring an actual story to the movie. The movie should be awesome but like I said they need to focus on one part of the story and not try to condense a crap ton of useless things just to connect the kids.
how is the halo story line shallow?
Shoot the alien invaders. Done that? Shoot bigger aliens.
Roll credits.
Yeah a Halo film will certainly happen but it has to under the right circumstances and with the right people at the helm.
I believe Microsoft know how much this franchise means to the company and hopefully by waiting and building up a decent concept/story/design they’ll have a decent video-game film adaptation.