Halo Film Still On Track

Eurogamer reports that, despite the decision by Fox and Universal to back out of the movie's production, the film version of Halo will move forward. From the article: "Now Microsoft has released an official statement via the Bungie website which reads: 'We are disappointed that Universal and Fox wanted to significantly renegotiate the financial points of the deal. But the Halo franchise is hugely popular and our goal remains the same - to find a partner that shares our passion and will creatively collaborate with us to best represent the story and spirit of the Halo franchise ... Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and the rest of the creative team are dedicated to ensuring the Halo movie becomes a reality,' the statement continues.

The difficulty with video game movies...

[GeneralChuikov]

How many video games have spawned great movie adaptations? Tomb Raider, Resident Evil... the problems with these movies are too numerous to mention here, but too often, it seemd like they aimed directly at the 13-17 year old demographic, creating products designed to peddle merchandise, which were often left failing to even attain the level of "enjoyable popcorn movie." I'm not arguing that every movie needs to be at the level of Lawrence of Arabia, Paths of Glory, the Red-White-Blue cycle, or even the original Matrix or the LOTR films. However, many of the video game movies are not even watchable (perhaps the only exception I can think of was AVP, which was at least watchable).

The potential for Halo to be turned into a good movie definitely exists. Many times, when playing the original game, I thought that it had the making of a good sci-fi horror movie, in the vein of the original Alien. The creepiness factor definitely exists, especially if the CGI team takes their time in creating "The Flood." The challenge will be in not producing a product that is too derivative. Obviously, the game producers drew on Predator, Alien, and other sci-fi movies when creating the game. The last thing I would want is to pay my $10-11, sit through it and say, "Wow... it's just like Aliens, but not as good."

Finally, I would hope that for Peter Jackson, this would be an opportunity to exorcise some of the demons of King Kong and get back to the level of quality that made the LOTR trilogy so magical. While I know that he is not directing it, his "stamp" of approval will reside on the movie, and I hope it reflects his best efforts.