Jackson's Halo project "on hold" - MS

By Ellie Gibson Published 29 July, 2009

Um, they should probably give him a ring.

Microsoft has said Peter Jackson's Halo project isn't in the bin after all - it's just "on hold".

"Microsoft Game Studios is deeply committed to supporting and strategically growing the Halo franchise, and our relationship with Peter and his team is something that we greatly value," reads a statement issued to Joystiq.

"Given the bandwidth of both of our companies we've decided to put this joint effort on hold and prioritise resources against other projects like Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Reach and Halo Legends."

Hmm. That's not quite what Jackson said earlier this week - in fact he stated, "That Halo project is no longer happening." Maybe he should send them a quick text?

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (16) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • erp #1 3 years ago

    cragtek: yes.

  • FHUTA #2 3 years ago

    Although it seemed Jackson's comment "That Halo project is no longer happening." is a pretty definite statement that the project is cancelled, it is still ambiguous.

    It could mean it's no longer being worked on / happening "right now" - and is to be resumed when bandwidth (seriously though - WTF with that terminology here!?) allows. But I doubt it. Most likely it's stopped, MS would like to resume it later and the business arangement in place is still officially open to that happening, but even if scrapped Jackson has no reason to go through the hoops of burning potential bridges.

  • schnide #3 3 years ago

    Two words: damage limitation

  • Miths #4 3 years ago

    "Did anyone else do a bit of sick after reading that phrase?"

    No, but I found myself scratching my head wondering whether perhaps Microsoft is still on dialup? Although I couldn't really see what direct impact that might have on a movie project.

  • AphoticCosmos #5 3 years ago

    343 Industries will probably find some way of producing it, even if Jackson & Blomkamp are busy doing other things.

    After all, Halo movie = probable megabucks.

    My bet is that they'll wait and gauge the reaction to Legends [the anime] before investing too much extra.

  • sneetch #6 3 years ago

    @cragtek

    Yes I did.

    It's also given me a bit of a idiot-headache, like a tension headache but you get it when exposed to idiocy.

  • dominalien #7 3 years ago

    If there's one game franchise which would make a good movie, it's Halo. Or anything from Bungie, for that matter. Think Myth ;-)

  • chubster2010 #8 3 years ago

    @ dominalien
    Really? I've always thought that a Halo movie would come across as a bit of a poor man's Star Wars. Also, the plot is far to confused to be satisfactorily whittled down to fill a 2 hour movie.

    And, having a lead character who's face you can't see would be somewhat of a challenge!

  • cheekyjay #9 3 years ago

    What's Halo Legends? How have I not heard about this?

  • CHAZBIGPOTATO #10 3 years ago

    I never believed it when Jackson was saying all that theoretical stuff back at the E3 show anyway, it sounded like he didn't have a clue what he was actually going to do..

    edit: theres a lot of people here talking about a movie, I was under the impression the Peter Jackson Halo project was not a movie but an, " interactive halo experience".
    Edited by 1 at 29/07/09 @ 12:25

  • Darren #11 3 years ago

    @chubster2010 - "And, having a lead character who's face you can't see would be somewhat of a challenge!"

    Didn't stop them doing that though with the god-awful Judge Dredd movie, did it?

    Peter Jackson's involvement in Halo had me optimistic that the movie would at least have been passable to good (as opposed to god-awful as most of these things are) but even so I'm not really sure I want to watch movies based on games really, certainly not first-person shooters which are typically lacking in fleshed out characters and decent plots. You need strong story driven games really to make a good movie out of without losing the essence of the original game so that limits your opinions straight away. I personally don't think Halo has a strong enough story or characters to sustain a movie and many of its concepts and ideas are very derivative since it borrows heavily from movies like Aliens and Starship Troopers.

    There again you could say the same about Transformers but those movies seem to have done alright even if they've been critically mauled. I don't suppose Hollywood is concerned especially about making great movies anyway, just movies that people want to see en masse, i.e. pack them with lots of explosive set-pieces and great effects and they're winners! Seems to work well for Michael Bay!
    Edited by 1 at 29/07/09 @ 12:35

  • dominalien #12 3 years ago

    @chubster2010

    My take on game->movie conversions is that you can either take characters from the game and try to match actual actors to them, or make a new storyline with new characters in the game's universe. The first approach will be more pleasing to the fans, but the second should be easier to implement (new faces). One movie which pulled off the first approach well was Mortal Kombat .

    Here, we get a very interesting world with a bunch of pretty faceless characters, including the protagonist. My take on this would be to create interesting characters (think KZ2's band of marines) who are new and perhaps use MC as a supporting, but influential presence. The universe stays the same, MC is there, but we get a cast of characters that no-one has any expectations about, apart from that they be well written and played.

    About Peter Jackson's involvement: undoubtedly he's a good director, but that alone doesn't guarantee he can make a good game-based movie. This has proven to be tricky, with imo the best guy so far being Paul W.S. Anderson (the aforementioned Mortal Kombat and the 1st Resident Evil). The other game movie adaptations were... controversial at best :-)

  • el_pollo_diablo #13 3 years ago

    I read the article title Jackson's Halo project on hold and instantly wondered what Michael Jackson was doing collaborating with Bungie.

  • dominalien #14 3 years ago

    @Ashen-Shugar

    Uh, sorry. I never actually played KZ2.

    What I meant was "a band of new faces". Is all. Sorry. No offence intended.

  • carlitoswagon #15 3 years ago

    @el_pollo_diablo

    me too. Sick bastards......

  • space_ace #16 3 years ago

    halo is in a loop?