Halo Movie Still A Go, Possible TV Series in the Works

Posted by: Michael

The Halo movie project is one of those projects that is taking longer then the second coming to make its way into theaters but fortunately its for the right reasons. Microsoft is very concerned about their game franchise being brought to the big screen in a form that supports and expands their franchise and does not ruin it like past videogame films have done. Case and point might be the DOOM movie starring The Rock which took a fantastic game franchise to the big screen and ruined it.

The HALO game franchise has made Microsoft almost $2billion and clearly Microsoft understand that the film could greatly expand not just the horizons of the game but also open up potential for more spin offs and even more company revenue. Frank O'Conner who handles the HALO franchise for Microsoft revealed to Variety that they are still very much working toward a feature film but at their own pace telling them;

“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.”

We have been talking about a HALO movie since early 2007 and three years later the project is no further ahead and alot of talented names have been attached and since moved on. Steven Spielberg was originally attached to the project and then replaced by Peter Jackson and Neil Blomkamp. Neil recently directed the absolutely fantastic District 9 and when Microsoft decided to not move ahead with the project he was clearly upset. Neil told Sheila Roberts who writes for us at comic-con;

Well, I think Halo is something that originally I was extremely fortunate to be involved with obviously. To get a first film like that is a pretty astounding thing. Not only that, but also the creative world of Halo, the universe of Halo is so appealing to me from multiple different science fiction aspects. So I think I was so invested in it for those months that we worked on it, it’s a very difficult thing to work on something and get into it like that, like that amount of creative intensity and then just have the rug pulled out from underneath you.

So I need some sort of time to sort of sit and look at whether Halo would be something that I’d want to go back to personally.

Peter Jackson was also present and did not pull any punches either when it came to the latest on the Halo movie telling Sheila;

What’s happening with Halo as far as I’m aware is that the rights for a moment in time, the rights were with Universal and Fox and they had the ability to make a film which didn’t happen for various reasons at that time. Subsequently, the film rights have expired and Microsoft have got the film rights back so they don’t sit with any studio at the moment. I think quite honestly, I think Microsoft are assessing what they want to do with Halo. It’s their baby. They have a whole plan for future games obviously and I’m sure they’d like to do a movie one day.

As much as we had a terrible experience ultimately with the way that Halo fell over, I think Microsoft also shared that. They were very frustrated. It wasn’t their fault and they were disillusioned I think to some degree by their experience. I think if any company could possibly make a film themselves and not have to deal with a studio, it’s possibly Microsoft.

So I think they’re assessing how they want to handle their relationship with the film industry. I think that’s something they’re figuring out so we’re not involved at the moment, but obviously I think we just have to let them figure out what they want to do with the property they own.

At this stage Garland, Stuart Beattie, D.B. Weiss and Josh Olso have all done scripts for the film which Frank says they are looking at as possible blueprints for the movie which will not carry the same story as the game. He also tells Variety that they are looking at television as a potential outlet to expand Halo into a TV series.

I am all for a Halo movie and although I hate to see Neil and Peter pulled off the project I understand Microsofts hesitance and I think as fans we can all agree that its better to think twice and give us a film we can all love then rush into a Doom or Dungeon Siege movie scenario.