Fox And Universal Say Goodbye To Halo Movie

Master_of_Tumbleweeds writes "20th Century and Universal Pictures, the two studios that agreed to co-finance the film adaptation of Microsoft's Halo video game, have abruptly pulled out of the project. This leaves executive producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh without financing or distribution. A ballooning budget (rumored to have been closing in on the $200 Mil mark) and apparent lack of confidence in rookie feature film director Neill Blomkamp are being named the major culprits for Fox and Universal's decision."

I'd call this a smart move.

[manno]

At .2 billion, I can't blame them.

Who needs a big Halo movie?

[Rob T Firefly]

We've already got lots of little Halo movies [roosterteeth.com] which, I suspect, are far better than anything Hollywood could do with it.

Why doesn't Microsoft Fund this?

[9mm Censor]

The budget is pretty much petty cash for MS. And entering the entertainment business means they can influence the business even more, towards MS online distribution (less iTunes, more M(S)P3s Online), and compete even more with Sony to push them out of the console market, to help the XBox360.

Re:I'd call this a smart move.

[AKAImBatman]

To put this into perspective:

- Batman Begins was estimated at $150,000,000
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was estimated at $93,000,000
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers was estimated at $94,000,000
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was estimated at $94,000,000
- King Kong was estimated at $207,000,000
- Star Wars Episode III was estimated at $113,000,000
- X-Men 3 was estimated at $210,000,000

Long story short, Jackson would have to prove that a video game movie would appeal to a wide enough audience to justify comparing it to King Kong and X-Men 3. Considering that video game movies always do poorly, I can see why the studios don't believe him.

Re:other factors

[ScentCone]

I would imagine the whole "partnering" with Microsoft thing to be a factor, too.

Why do you imagine that? Because Microsoft can't make, supply, or be shrewdly involved in entertainment-related material like Halo? Or because you don't like MS, and it feels good to say that? What's your actual thinking, and why is this +1 "informative" anyway?

Re:I'd call this a smart move.

[gEvil (beta)]

There's a difference though. The geeks that grew up with many of the comics that have recently been turned into movies are in their 20s and 30s (or older) and are gainfully employed. Many (but not all) of the geeks who grew up with Halo are still in their teens.

He was only a producer in this one

[hellfire]

Peter Jackson's track record as a director is firmly established. However, as the submission said, he's not the director here. Slide Peter into the director's chair, and yes the equation does change.

You have to understand, Hollywood's track record with movies based on game adaptations is not good. So when you say "I'm going to make a movie based on a game" you are already starting in a hole. To dig out of the hole, you have to get a great script, a strong proven director, and reasonably good cast.

Then real hard part begins. You have to make sure the movie itself provides enough material to entertain fans of the game, stick to the over all idea of the original story, and then include enough quality to stand on a movie on it's own to draw in nonfans to make money. This is the hard part because while games don't typically require the same capital investment as movies (big name stars, directors, creative crew require much larger sums of money than your top notch game programmers).

I'm not saying Neil is bad, but he's not got Peter's reputation. Writing a script that can do all this is hard, and the IMDB link says they've changed scriptwriters at least once. They haven't dug out of the hole, and Fox looks like it's not going to take the risk.

If Peter looked like he had the same level of involvment in this project like he did in LotR, then this would be a great movie. It doesn't look like he does, and well he can't be perfect in all of his releases :) If it did come out bad, I'd rather it be axed now then damage his reputation later.

People Forget - Halo was inspired by a book

[stevedcc]

Ok, so I know he isn't published in the USA, but Halo was at least partly inspired (http://marathon.bungie.org/Story/halo_culture.htm l [bungie.org]) by an Iain M Banks book, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Consider-Phlebas-Iain-Bank s/dp/1857231384 [amazon.co.uk]). I think this means that comparison's with films like DOOM is kind of unfair. Btw, Iain M Banks is one of the best sci fi authors alive. If you don't believe me, read it. An awesome book. Steve Crawford

Re:Odd

[EvilMonkeySlayer]

"Wow, I like money...awesome, let me attach my name to this movie."

Fixed that for you.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Odd

[Volante3192]

If producers had nothing to do with the end product, though, mentioning the names Berman and Braga to trekkies would be inconsequential rather than invoke frothing at the mouth.

I don't agree!!

[TrisexualPuppy]

Let's use some crazy gorilla math. Alive in Joburg is about 6 minutes long. Make it 90 or 120 minutes long, and you've got twenty times the budget. (Mind you, I'm using crazy gorilla math). I don't think that short film cost $10 million. Hell, I doubt it even cost $200,000. I think if they worked on a budget first (say, $75 million), and then worked backwards from there, they can still have a great product.

Now, a budget of $200 million is a lot for any movie. Jackson's King Kong barely broke even, so he doesn't exactly have a perfect track record.

Was I the only one who was thoroughly impressed with Mr. Blomkamp's short film Alive in Joburg [google.com]? I thought it was a nice mix of sci-fi and realism and would love to see more movies blending that style.

Please don't make the movie three hours long. I wouldn't be able to take it all in, HEH!

Re:Odd

[twistedsymphony]

You're forgetting the part where the Halo games actually had a worthwhile plot, in addition to a substantial amout of backstory and a series of execlently written books and graphic novels. you can't say that about Doom, Mario Bros, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, or RE2.

Re:Recipe For Failure

[cgenman]

The problem isn't that games lack intricate plot. The fact of the matter is that interesting story developments come unexpectedly, and unexpected behaviors have a habit of making games unpredictable and therefore unplayable. Likewise, the most gripping of plot elements revolve around tortured interpersonal decision making. Unfortunatley, not only can you not enforce those decisions on the player, most of those decisions are completely impossible to simulate on a d-pad.

When working with games, you have to work within the medium. You wouldn't go to a stage production and complain that the special effects are weak.

That having been said, it is possible to translate a property from one medium to the other. They may not have enough plot right out of the box, but that's why you pay writers. Halo is essentially an amalgomation of Ridley Scott and Paul Verhoeven movies: Aliens, Starship Troopers, a little Robocop. They took what would work in the medium, stripped out the rest, filled in all of the holes with gameplay goodness, and polished, polished, polished. Just make Master Chief some sort of tortured semi robotic slave hero, out to save the universe because he's being forced to. Throw in a bunch of conflicted compatriots, a callously killing race of aliens which they're in some strange way saving from The Flood (which, in turn, is being saved from the Halo destruction of all things), and you have the basis for a plot.

So far most game movies have been turds. But considering the plot they had decided to shoot, and the skill with which they were shot, I'd be surprised if any of those directors could create something that wasn't terrible.

Re:I'd call this a smart move.

[c6gunner]

Yeah, and it's not like Teens go to the movie theaters or anything. Or buy merchandise. In fact, that's why no company anywhere gears their advertising towards teens. It would make no sense, since they don't have any money!

Re:i have to disagree with you somewhat.

[AKAImBatman]

Sure, Doom barely broke even after dvd/vhs rental (yet they're making a second [last I heard].. so that says something).

FWIW, I actually thought Doom was the best video game movie ever made. I was especially impressed by the training they received to "look" like real soldiers. If it hadn't pumped up the expectations for extreme violence so much, it probably would have done even better.

But Tomb Raider grossed $131M in the US alone, with another $60M in rental market (plus foreign box office, merchandising, etc). With a production budget of $80M, that's a nifty return.

Let's be honest, though. Tomb Raider sold heavily on sex appeal rather than story line. The movie itself was less than spectacular.

If we ignore that and take the profits at face value, then we're still nowhere near close enough to make a $200,000,000 movie. The total return on Tomb Raider was less than it would cost to finance a $200,000,000 movie, much less make a profit on it. :(

I believe is the storyline does its own thing

I agree completely. The story is key to making a good movie. Traditionally, Comic Book movies only did so-so themselves. That is, until some real talent started stepping up to the plate and adding incredible storytelling behind them. However, comic books have incredible amounts of storyline to pick and chose from. Video Games do not have that luxury, and may even be unsuitable for live-action. (Witness: Super Mario Bros.) In addition, many comic books are culturally iconic, allowing them to reach an audience far beyond the actual readership. This is something that video games rarely share.

Also, as an aside, I have you "friended" on /., and do thoroughly enjoy reading most of your comments. This is the first time i've had the chance to reply to a "friend," since I mostly lurk (and generally only post in articles relating to digital cinema, or film stuff.. since that is what I do). Keep up the good comments ;)

Actually, that double-green bubble means that I'm a friend of a friend. You never actually marked me as such. But thank you for your kind words. I'd try to keep my comment quality high. :)

Re:I'd call this a smart move.

[twistedsymphony]

I can understand why. and honestly I dont understand why directors and producers that propose a videogame movie are not beaten to death by the studios.... I dont care how good you are, Halo the movie??? I'd rather see Half Life the movie, and even then only if there is lots of crowbar action on headcrabs.

While it's true that a lot of games just wouldn't make sense in the movie realm. The differences is in the script. In comic books characters are fleshed out, they have identities and personalities, and they have years of history with how the characters interact with each other. For a movie adaptation you can strip the story straight out of the pages, or if you write it fresh you have oodles and oodles of backstory and character traits that you can easily reference for inspiration. Not only does this keep the movie true to the comic's roots (which is important in any adaptation) but it also has the added benefit of keeping the fans happy in addition to giving the script a vast amount of depth and complexity with relatively little work on the writer's part (so long as he/she is familiar with the original work, or does their research).

The problem is that NOT all video games have such a rich history. Games like Mario Bros and Doom in their infancy had a vague Shadow of a plot that was little more then a sorry excuse for why the pixels on the screen were dancing the way there were. Sure newer games have more of a script and are becoming more cinematic but even still the history isn't there, You might get 1 or 2 so-so game scripts to base your movie off of and that's if you're lucky. The rest of the movie's script and character design has to be invented by the writers, and to make it good enough to REALLY capture the feel of the game the writer has to do a whole lot more work to make it worth while for the audience.

Halo is a little different though, not only doe it have 2 games with very SOLID scripts (and a 3rd with the script already written I'm sure) it also has a series of very well written novels as well as a comic book, all based in the same world. In addition it has a loyal fan base that keeps tabs on all the little nuances of the franchise, similar to what you find in other sci-fi fan bases the likes of Star Wars, Star Trek, or Battlestar Galactica.

Halo has more then enough there to write a good movie script that will make a movie people want to watch. It's not the only game like this either, both Tomb Raider and Silent Hill have more backstory and well written game scripts then most games (though not nearly as good as what is available for Halo) and those were clearly far and wide better received films then other video game adaptations of games with little to no plot.

Re:other factors

[ScentCone]

Microsoft isn't exactly known for turning a profit with it's gaming division

I think you're confusing hardware with software. This movie is not hardware.

Re:i have to disagree with you somewhat.

[nasch]

Argh, why not StarCraft?? So much material there to make a movie from!

Re:I'd call this a smart move.

[Ucklak]

Comic Book audience != Video Game audience.
Video Game fanboys may like comics but not all comic readers like video games much less any one in particular.

Spider-man readers may like Unreal but not Halo. X-Men readers may like Halo but not Unreal.
Readers of both may hate Halo except those who casually read Spider-man.

Pac Man was never as popular as Spider-man is.
Plus comics explore themes and have character development. Video games are all about action and special effects.

The other part of the equation is that Halo is only marketed to XBox owners and PC/Mac gamers. Not a sure fire return on investment for a $200 million dollar movie much less any $40 million dollar game.
That means you can rule out Playstation and Nintento players out unless they also have an XBox but then they're already in the XBox demographic.

I'm sure that the studio heads also look at some made up correlation that PC gamers are more likely to download a movie than pay money to see it in a theatre.

Re:I don't agree!!

[ngtvtw13ve]

IIRC Peter Jackson did nothing major or good for that matter before taking the reigns of a little movie trilogy called "Lord of the Rings".
I would have hoped the studios would have more faith in Jackson being a producer than worrying about the fame of the director.

Re:Halo has an amazing story

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahaha. You're funny.

If you think Halo has a good story, it must be the only game you have ever played. Hell, the GTA games had better stories than Halo.

Re:I'd call this a smart move.

[MMaestro]

Wow, don't quit your day job and go into marketing.

Try visiting a college campus at the beginning of a new semester. Banks are ALWAYS trying to get students to open new accounts with them. Clothes? I'm sorry but Banana Republic, Tommy Hilfiger and specialized retailers like Hot Topic disagree. Toys?! Holy crap, have you completely ignored the massive amounts of 80's cartoon remakes lately? Food is too general to aim at a specific audience. When was the last time you saw a senior citizens aimed advertisement?

Teens are too easily swayed by peer pressure. If you build a quality product, its still too random whether they will decide on you product or not.

Yes, even if you have a quality product like the iPod, the Nintendo DS or cell phones that do everything except cure cancer, teens are too random to gauge whether they will decide on your product or not. /sarcasm