Microsoft Says HALO Movie Still On Hold

Its been a crazy week for HALO movie updates and now Microsoft has weighed in with an update after the rumors that Spielberg was gung ho to get on board. Microsoft has announced that the film is still on hold as they complete work on Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach.

Earlier in the week IESB announce Steven Spielberg has been blown away by the script for the HALO Movie and is eager to get on board the project;

Spielberg is blown away by writer Stuart Beattie’s take on the game in his script entitled HALO THE FALL OF REACH. This coupled with the fact that his Dreamworks umbrella is looking for a big tent pole to help launch their newly independant studio with distribution over at Walt Disney Pictures after losing Transformers to Paramount in the separation, it’s the perfect combination.

Word is CAA, who rep both Spielberg and Beattie, is pushing these negotiations heavily.

At Comic Con we caught up with Peter Jackson and Neil Blomkamp who were both originally involved with Halo and it was quite obvious how annoyed they were at the Halo film project stalling, or at least their involvement ending. Neil said;

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 supplied his own updates on where he saw HALO and where it stood;

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.

Spielberg is a good choice but for me Peter Jackson is a superior choice. Stay tuned for more.