Vague Halo film reassurance

By Tom Bramwell Published 29 May, 2007

Or something. Er.

The Halo film may be on hold, but those of you looking for some incredibly vague reassurance that things will change in the future need look no further than recent comments made by executive producer Peter Jackson in Eurogamer's "second country", New Zealand.

"Jackson said he expected renewed interest from Hollywood studios 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures to have Halo made as the Halo 3 videogame will be released later this year," The Dominion Post actually said. "We wouldn't want to do it with anybody else. It'll be Neill's call," Jackson added, not echoing that at all.

The Halo film has been on hold since October last year when Wingnut Films admitted defeat following Universal and Fox's decision to pull out of the deal they had struck with Microsoft. The film, with a script penned by 28 Days Later scribe Alex Garland, was originally sent around Hollywood with a list of weighty demands attached, and it's thought these got in the way.

However things seemed to be going well, with South African director Neill Blomkamp (him wot Jackson mentions above) soon attached, and preliminary work well under way. "Neill is a tremendously gifted filmmaker and his preliminary work on Halo is truly awe-inspiring," Wingnut Films said at the time of the film's postponement, when it also said: "While it will undoubtedly take a little longer for Halo to reach the big screen, we are confident that the final feature film will be well worth the wait." Which is more than Jackson said this time around. Tricksy hobbit.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (21) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • AcidSnake #1 5 years ago

    Boo! Hiss! Give it to Uwe Boll!...

  • The-Bodybuilder #2 5 years ago

    Interesting.
    I do think interest will be renewed after H3.

    P.S: Halo is overrated, crap. I'm I the only one that didn't like halo 2? 8/10.
    Get it out of the way.

  • Killerbee #3 5 years ago

    I can't say that a Halo film really inspires me with a great deal of interest - the plot of the game wasn't that great, after all - certainly not in the league of Metal Gear Solid for instance. Alex Garland though, is a great writer, so maybe they could pull something out of a the bag.

  • tiddles #4 5 years ago

    Why is NZ EG's 2nd country?

  • Overlush #5 5 years ago

    Because England is it's first?

  • reality_cheque #6 5 years ago

    I doubt they'd set the film in the first game, when there is a perfectly good book set before Halo 1 that explains the whole Spartan project (unless they're saving it for a prequel)

  • Gurgeh #7 5 years ago

    Halo 2 "partial nudity" revealed

    "The content in question, although likely to be inaccessible to the vast majority of users, displays a photograph of an individual showing his bare backside to the user when a particular error occurs, and thus warrants a ‘Partial Nudity’ content descriptor in order to alert consumers to its presence in the product."

    [link url=http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2007/05/26/halo-2-vista-delayed-re-stickered-due-to-image-of-naked-behind
    ]http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.a...[/link]

  • crazyhorse174 #8 5 years ago

    Halo 2 "partial nudity" revealed

    "The content in question, although likely to be inaccessible to the vast majority of users, displays a photograph of an individual showing his bare backside to the user when a particular error occurs, and thus warrants a ‘Partial Nudity’ content descriptor in order to alert consumers to its presence in the product."

    http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.a...

    Hahahahahahahahahahaha! :D

  • bioreit #9 5 years ago

    I think a Halo movie would be good - everyone who moans about 'There's no story to Halo, what would they do?' is missing the point.

    When you have a fairly well-realised universe that doesn't have full-blown storylines, making a film is actually easier. You don't have millions of things you could mess up, for instance.

    And get out with your MGS storyline stuff - the games were little more than films themselves! Making a film of MGS would be like watching a series of cutscenes from the game - albeit shorter in length and cheaper.

    If they stopped that film every half hour and got the audience to press a few buttons before starting it up again, you'd have the best example of cinema-video game crossovers ever...

    /Never liked glorified cutscene pile of crap that was MGS. MGS2 was my worst ever purchase for my PS2. Sorry for wandering off-topic.

  • The-Bodybuilder #10 5 years ago

    Hmmmm, a halo related thread thats ending up with metal gear bashing.
    This is different.

  • bioreit #11 5 years ago

    Was responding to Killebee - and I said sorry for it! so :p

  • Nithron #12 5 years ago

    Let's face it, however great this turns out to be, it'll *never* beat the Mario Bros movie.

  • Dizzy #13 5 years ago

    "the plot of the game wasn't that great, after all - certainly not in the league of Metal Gear Solid for instance"

    ROFL... you just made my day!!!!

  • J0YCIE #14 5 years ago

    I think we can all agree, it's got POTENTIAL.
    whether it lives up to it is a different thing, and down to mr jackson and who ever else.

  • SomaticSense #15 5 years ago

    ^^^ I disagree. I can't help but think it'll be absolute crap. Can't really put a finger on why, but the license just screams derivative epic sci-fi rubbish. It works in the game, but do people really honestly believe it'll work in a 2 hour film?

    When thinking about a big-screen Halo, I just can't help thinking about Chronicles of Riddick for some reason. It feels like it'll have the same dull sci-fi flavour.

    edit: Plus, a film where the central character is hidden behind a mask, unable to show any kind of emotion just isn't going to work. And if they get around that by having him remove the mask constantly, ala Spidey 3, then the fans will go nuts.

    And I'm not saying Master Chief has a complete lack of charisma, but the character certainly doesn't have anywhere near enough to carry a film. And like above, if they change it the the fans will be pissed. Imagine how comical a Half-Life film would be with a mute Gordon Freeman......
    Edited by SomaticSense at 29/05/07 @ 14:10

  • tiddles #16 5 years ago

    And get out with your MGS storyline stuff - the games were little more than films themselves! Making a film of MGS would be like watching a series of cutscenes from the game - albeit shorter in length and cheaper.

    I thought the storyline for MGS1 was pretty good - it was only during 2 that the longwindedness and twistyturnyness got out of hand, imo...

  • bioreit #17 5 years ago

    "a film where the central character is hidden behind a mask, unable to show any kind of emotion just isn't going to work"

    Judge Dredd. One of the MAIN reasons that filmed sucked so much was precisely because the lead character was played with emotion and without the helmet.

    That wasn't the only reason it bombed, but if they'd fixed that and had Dredd arrest Hershey at the end for public indecency, that film would have been much better.

    Now if they can just do a Strontium Dogs film, I'll be happy. Maybe even a Rogue Trooper - after all, they already did the game and it's supposed to be American anyway.

    /off on a 2000AD dreamhaze now....drokk...Joe Pineapples....grud...Nemesis and Torquemada....No, NOT SLAINE!!! GAH!....ahh - thank you, Halo Jones.

  • TankStrike #18 5 years ago

    That Blomkamp guy is pretty good though, that Welcome to Jonesboro (I think that's what it was called) short was practically Halo 2's short lived Earth levels.

    On top of that, you have the best bits ripped from Aliens and Predator, and a pretty gung ho but desperate human element and horrific enemy, the Halo movie could be brilliant.

    Heck, it would have more plot than Transformers, but that looks ace!

  • YourMessageHere #19 5 years ago

    On the flip side, a central character who never shows his face worked really well in V for Vendetta. Then again, it worked because he's a verbose character and had a maskless foil in Natalie Portman for most of the film. My minimal playing of Halo gave me little impression that Master Chief was especially gifted in the vocabulary department, although the female AI (Cortana?) could concievably work as a foil.

    Personally I'd be much more interested to see it done entirely from first person perspective; yes, the Doom film was a travesty but the FPS bit was good.

  • Drakron #20 5 years ago

    But that is beyond the reason why Halo film was put on hold.

    [link url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/news/comments/?entryid=372606
    ]http://www.rottentomatoes.com/news/comme...[/link]

    It does not matter if Halo as a movie is a success or not, as a financial venture its something that is unlikely to produce the revenue to pay for itself.

  • TheStranger #21 5 years ago

    When has a video game to movie ever turned out badly?













    Oh, yeah. Always.