Microsoft promises Halo will get made

Fans are still calling for a live-action film of Microsoft’s Halo. Given the immense popularity of the franchise, it’s hard to believe an animated film (Halo Legends) was released, and there’s no sign that a live-action version is coming anytime soon. An attempt at a movie was made with Neil Blomkamp (District 9) as the director a few years back, but was canned due to the immense budget.

However, Microsoft hasn’t given up yet, and Manager/Lead Writer/Arbiter Frank O’Connor revealed to Kotaku that a live-action film WILL get made.  ”There will be a Halo movie,” he said. Some may have assumed the whole debacle with Blomkamp and Jackson has persuaded Microsoft to abandon the project all together, but that’s not the case. “Everyone wanted to do a Halo movie, the director, Microsoft, the highest placed people at movie companies,” O’Connor said. The reason O’Connor gives for cancelling the previous film was that “it was the lawyers” after they “went behind closed doors with the contracts.” Microsoft owns all the rights to Halo, and the studio wouldn’t be making any money on the merchandising or anything beyond the movie. Even if the film was a box-office failure, DVD sales and merchandising would sell, and the studio wouldn’t get anything, so the deal fell apart.

That experience hasn’t swayed O’Connor or Microsoft from making a feature film, and they would allow any director to have freedom on the movie. “If Danny Boyle wants to make a Danny Boyle-style movie, that’s great. Let Danny Boyle be Danny Boyle. We would not constrain a director,”O’Connor said. Although, it’s probably too late to ask Blomkamp to return as he’s mentioned that he doesn’t want to get involved with big-budget films. While a movie is favored, O’Connor hasn’t ruled out the possibility of a television series either. “We’d love to see Halo as a television series. Look what HBO did with Band of Brothers or even Rome. Something like that would work because the Halo universe is so vast,” he said. With the right writers, a miniseries could provide more depth to the story than a feature film, but O’Connor still insists on making it a movie.

Matt Keith

I’m just your everday movie nerd.

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