Bettie beleives the old style Halo movie incaration is dead and is ready to release his vision, Halo: The Fall of Reach, a prequel to the first game.  John Gaudiosi finds out what this vision is, in his interview for game daily.  See the full transcript below.

And thanks to Blair Allan for sending us this news.

GameDaily BIZ: One of the big riffs about Halo early on from Hollywood producers I’ve spoken with was that the movie borrowed too much from Aliens…

BIZ: Why do you think Microsoft wasn’t able to get this movie off the ground with Peter Jackson attached and 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures on board?

SB: I wasn’t involved so I don’t know specifically why it fell apart, but I do know Hollywood is a numbers game. There’s certainly going to be an interest in a huge IP like Halo, but there’s going to be a point where the numbers just don’t add up any more. From what I had read, the budget kept going higher and higher and all of the back-ends were going to everyone but the people who were putting up the money to make the movie. And it just got to the breaking point because it was no longer fiscally responsible to make. These movies are a business.

BIZ: Where does your Halo movie fit in with everything?

SB: The Halo movie in its initial incarnation is dead. No one is pursuing it any more. When the writers guild strike hit last year I suddenly had three months to write a Halo script. I always had this vision of doing Halo: The Fall of Reach, which is a prequel to the first game. It sets up a world 500 years in the future and we have colonies, there’s the UNSC, there’s the secret Spartan training program. And you see this six-year-old kid kidnapped in the middle of the night.

BIZ: And where does Master Chief fit into all of this?

SB: The character doesn’t start off as Master Chief. He starts off as John, who’s the kid that’s kidnapped and told he’s going to be a soldier. Anyone can connect with a kid kidnapped from his own home. You’re along for that journey. The Covenant comes along halfway through that movie. That gives you half the movie to really get to know everyone and care about everyone. And then when the Covenant come along, it’s the first time John sees a grunt or a jackal or an elite. The audience is trying to figure out everything at the same time as the characters are. What are these aliens? Why are they killing us? What did we do? And realizing it’s all about this Halo ring. And then ending the movie where the first game begins.

BIZ: What do you think gamers, who’ve been waiting a long time for a Halo movie, will get from your adaptation?

SB: I’ve been waiting a long time, too, as a fan. For fans, it will give a whole new perspective that they’ve never had before. And for non-fans it will introduce a whole new world, a time and a place with interesting characters. They can get into that and then they can go play the games because they know the whole backstory.

BIZ: You’ve talked about John getting kidnapped as a kid and a lot of peaceful time before the attacks. How much action is in your story?

SB: As a Halo fan what I want to see in a Halo movie is Master Chief kicking alien butt and we have plenty of that. But we’ve also got this great story that goes along with it. I always thought that was the way a Halo story should be so when I got time during the strike I decided to put my money where my mouth was. I did a bunch of concept art and boards and animatics. I did a presentation package and contacted Microsoft and Bungie. Joe Statton at Bungie (director of cinematics and writer of the three games) read it and loved it. I wasn’t part of the previous incarnation so I don’t know what they did with that script. But the book they commissioned, Halo: The Fall of Reach by Eric Nyland was a fantastic book.

BIZ: What’s the next step, now that you have a completed script?

SB: We’re now in discussions with Microsoft to see if we can get this made. I’m just a fan and I desperately want to see a Halo movie out there.

BIZ: Are you a go-to guy now in Hollywood for game adaptations?

SB: I get sent a lot of games. I’ve been sent games before that I don’t like and that I’ve turned down because I’m not the right guy for that job. That’s not going to be a good adaptation. You need to love the game. If I haven’t played the game, I say, “Can you give me a year?” I can’t just adapt a game for a film unless I’ve played it and liked it.

BIZ: And you obviously have that passion for the Halo games, right?

SB: At the end of the day you have to really be inspired. It can’t just be a story from the game. Once you go and make the movie that’s two years of your life and you have to be invested in the story. You gotta know you have the right story. I suspect (with the original Halo movie) they didn’t fully have the right story. They had three or four writers on it and that’s usually a sign that they didn’t have a story and they kept going around in circles.

BIZ: Thanks for your time. We hope your film gets made.

We continue to be in discussions with various potential partners. We’re so excited about the idea. We don’t have anything specific to announce but I can tell you that their continues to be tremendous interest. We wanna make sure, whenever we translate it to the big screen that its going to be a movie worthy of the IP. So we’re going to be very careful about how we proceed there.

“We wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else. It’s Neill’s call.”

For more Peter Jackson news, The Hobbit, Lovely Bones, Dambusters etc, check out Cinematical’s article.

But I’m sure you guys are all too busy playing the Halo 3 beta to read this news post, let alone any links I point you to.

Here’s what he had to say about the on-hiatus Halo film that we haven’t heard much about in the past few weeks:

How about the movie? What’s happening there? I imagine that in your position that you’re also responsible for the writing on that.

So it looks like things are still going to head forward sometime in the future, just the nitty gritty business deals and funding to get sorted, as per usual. Also… bring on the Halo 3 beta (did you all get your Halo 3 beta invite?), I think we’re all looking forward to it.

Full interview at Joystiq, read on for info about Halo 3 multiplayer, story lines and Peter Jackson’s episodic content.

“While we have no deals to announce, everyone in Hollywood is looking at it. For the magnitude of what the script is — I’ve read the screenplay — and what we need to do to uphold the ‘Halo’ universe for its legion of fans in the way they want to see a movie being made, no, it won’t be next year.”

Full Article at MTV.com

This interview covers a number of important topics that are on the minds of those following the film’s development.

Neill Blomkamp

First and foremost Jackson discusses why Neill Blomkamp was chosen as director even though he has not produced a feature length movie until now. To paraphrase, Jackson comments on Blomkamp’s brilliant visual eye and storytelling ability — as apparent in his short films.

- He is an absolute Halo fan (and is thus not in it for the cash or publicity)

- He can provide a unique out-of-the-box approach as far away from current video game-movie adaptations as possible.

- He was chosen over many other applicant directors because his visions and plans are exciting and entirely new and the potential is great: Believe me, he’s doing something that is very, very different from what people are imagining, from what people have seen before. … It is original and new and has not been seen before on the screen. It’s not Ridley Scott, it’s not James Cameron, it’s not what we’ve seen before, but it’s something new and fresh and it’s cool. (Jackson states that Blomkamp has already spent 2 solid months working with Weta on every aspect of design).

Script

Secondly, the script. It is not currently ready and at the moment Blomkamp is focusing on his vision of the Halo universe. We are slowly tugging away at it, getting it there.

Since Garland’s draft two new scripts have been written. Jackson states it is coming along nicely and although he, Fran and Philippa are not personally involved in the writing they are keeping a close eye and stringently policing its quality. Filming will not start until the script is “really great”. The time needed to develop the Halo world, the props and the physical realisation of the dream also allows time to perfect the script. There will be Covenant, Warthogs, Ghosts and Scorpions and even the Pillar of Autumn.

PG-13?

This topic has not yet been discussed, states Jackson. Though he imagines the studio will insist on PG-13 given the budget. He then goes on to discuss the possibility of a “hard R rating DVD” and the gruesome hardcore flood designs — pulsating, throbbing [and] oozing.

The key quote is:
[They all say] “You can’t make a good film out of a game.” Well, that’s all crap. Good films just need good characters, good storyline and a great director to bring it to life and make a film that you’ve never seen before.

This all sounds too perfect. Our favorite video game is being brought to life in the best possible manner — a revolutionary visionary (Blomkamp), crisp and unique visual effects (WETA) and a master at the helm (Jackson). The foundations are set and the building plans look hellacious — let’s just hope the studios don’t contract shoddy workmen — we dont want everything to fall down with the first tremor.

Thanks Giorgio_C | AICN

The full interview:

QUINT: Of the movies you’re producing that are not your own, you seem to be bringing in first time feature directors. Both with HALO and DAMBUSTERS. Is that just coincidence?

PETER JACKSON: It’s not deliberate and certainly for HALO it wasn’t deliberate. I don’t think even for a show like HALO, which is a big budget production, I don’t think there’s any problem whatsoever with a so-called first time director directing it. At the end of the day, Neill (Blomkamp) is not a first time director. He’s a first time feature film director, but he understands film and grammar as good as anybody. He’s done some wonderful short films and commercials. His visual eye is fantastic and his storytelling is great. The fact that it’s a feature film just means that he gets to shoot for longer than he did in the short film. There really isn’t anything else that’s different.

We certainly didn’t set out with HALO to find a first time filmmaker Academy-Awards to do HALO. We wanted somebody on HALO that would have 3 qualities. One, a very important one, is that they wanted to do it really badly. They had to be absolute HALO fans. That was important because there are a lot of people who would be happy to do HALO for the paycheck, there’s a lot of people who would be happy to do it for the publicity they’re going to get from it and the kick it’ll give to their career and all that and all of that sort of stuff. There’s lots of reasons to do HALO that would be attractive if you’re not a HALO fan, but we didn’t want any of those people, we wanted somebody who was a real HALO fan.

Secondly, and this is sort of just as important, we wanted somebody who was going to bring a unique vision to it. It’s so easy to shut your eyes and imagine a really bad version of HALO. That comes to you in a frightenly simple, quick way. You think, “Oh, my God! This could be so terrible!” I guess it’s because so many other video game movies have been terrible and so much other sci-fi in that type of genre has been terrible.

It’s like Fantasy was before LORD OF THE RINGS. Everybody was saying, “These films aren’t any good.” In a sense, everybody’s saying “You can’t make a good film out of a game.” Well, that’s all crap. Good films just need good characters, good storyline and a great director to bring it to life and make a film that you’ve never seen before. That’s what it needs. It doesn’t matter a damn whether it’s based on a game, a book or a piece of chewing gum, you know? That’s irrelevant. It’s what actually ends up on the screen that’s important.

So, we wanted a director who we would get excited about their version of HALO. We wanted somebody that would make us say, “God, I’d love to see what this person would do with this story, with this material.” We considered a lot of directors. A lot of directors came to us. I mean, believe me… we waited for months and months and months. We eschewed a couple of people which didn’t work out. We’ve had lots and lots of people approaching us, obviously agents and people saying “So and so client would love to do it.”

At all times they were people that we thought, “Well… their version of HALO doesn’t really excite me all that much. I could imagine what it’d be like and it doesn’t really (excite me).” But then when Neill came along and we saw what he’d done and we’d spoken to him… believe me, he’s doing something that is very, very different from what people are imagining, from what people have seen before. Some of the visuals… He’s been working with Weta pretty much full time for, I guess it’d be about 2 months now, turning out lots and lots of art every day. And maquettes, production design, color art has been coming out of there. I’ve got folders and folders of it at home here. It’s fantastic stuff. I mean, I look through it and I get excited about the film.

We’re still developing a script and we’ve still got work to go on the script and that’s underway, but while that’s happening Neill is just producing his vision of this world. It is original and new and has not been seen before on the screen. It’s not Ridley Scott, it’s not James Cameron, it’s not what we’ve seen before, but it’s something new and fresh and it’s cool. That was important to us. Someone who was going to not go the cliched way, but go in the direction that they had an original vision for and Neill has got that in spades. We’re feeling really, really good.

QUINT: Let’s talk a little bit about the script for HALO. Alex Garland’s Microsoft draft wasn’t very strong and I know after I read it I was worried, as a fan of HALO.

PETER JACKSON: Since Alex’s draft, there have been another two that have been written. Pretty much page one revisions to get to where we are today. It’s getting much better along now and there are certainly a lot of things in it now that are working well. There are things that aren’t working well in it yet, but Fran, Philippa and I are not writing the script, but, in a sense, one of the things we’re contributing with our involvement in the project is being the police, the script cops! So, nothing is going to end up on the screen that doesn’t get our stamp of approval. We’re going to be pretty tough with the script. We’re not going to spare people’s feelings.

We’re not writing it and we’re trying to be as constructive as we can and we’re trying to give criticism and suggest ways in which we think things should be improved. That process is going along okay and we’re getting there. The movie, as far as I’m concerned, as far as my involvement is concerned, is not going to go in front of the cameras until we have a really great script.

In the meantime Neill’s fully occupied designing everything that needs to be designed. The whole world has to be designed and the whole world has to be built. There’s nothing that’s going to be hired out of a prop store, you know? And like LORD OF THE RINGS and KONG, it’s one of those great (positions). We have time to work on the script because all the work that has to happen… we know what’s going to be in the movie. We know that there’s going to be the Covenant, we know that there’s going to be Warthogs and there’s going to be Ghosts (QUINT NOTE: Covenant ships, not spooks for you HALO virgins) and Scorpion (Tanks)‘s and there’s going to be the Pillar of Autumn. We know a huge amount.

We obviously know a lot of the world of HALO that the story’s going to take part in. So, there’s a lot of very productive work that’s underway at the moment while the script takes whatever (amount of time). As far as I’m concerned it should take as long as it needs to take until it’s a good script. We are slowly tugging away at it, getting it there.

QUINT: Now, there’s no reason on Earth shouldn’t easily and faithfully be adapted into a PG-13 movie. However, do you anticipate there being a harder cut considering how gruesome the Flood aspect of the story is?

PETER JACKSON: That’s interesting… It’s something, I must admit, that’s not a conversation I’ve had with anybody yet. It’s a conversation that I’m sure will happen. Look, the reality of the budget is that I would imagine the studio are going to be pretty insistent on a PG-13, which, as you say, is certainly not an impossible thing pull off. The concept of a hard R rating for DVD is kind of fun because that does ultimately deliver a film that the hardcore fans would enjoy and that’s certainly something we should discuss. But honestly it’s a conversation that hasn’t actually happened yet.

But the designs for The Flood that I’ve been seeing are incredibly hardcore, I have to say. The wonderful thing of using the world of CG now and that real, Lovecraftian kind of twisted… That stuff lends itself to computer generated effects so well, the organic, pulsating, throbbing, oozing kind of effect looks great. I had a bit of fun with that on KONG with those sort of bug things and those insects and wormy things that kill Andy Serkis. I can see that tying all that CG technology to some Lovecraftian horror is going to be awesome.

But yeah. Look, I think it’s a great idea. I think it’s something we should definitely talk about. I mean, those conversations haven’t happened yet since we haven’t really got a script that we think is the script we’re going to make yet, so I guess once we have a script the question of rating will come up. I think as long as the studio gets a PG-13 to release theatrically, I’d imagine they’d actually be supportive and certainly we can talk to them about supporting the idea of (a harder cut for DVD). I think Neill would be into it.

The key points to note:
– Neill Blomkamp is a big fan of the games and prefers Halo 1
– He is confident in his ability to create a feature film
– Being faithful to the game is important, especially concerning Master Chief
– Too early to consider actors and musical score
– The Covenant:
“the most important thing is that viewer thinks they are looking at something that lives and breathes, and exists […] they also need to be terrifying, and alien “
– The Flood:
“I absolutely love the flood, more importantly I love infected humans and covenant”

My goal is to make something that is honestly unique and a radical departure from stuff we are used to. I’ve been given the resources and the source material to make something awesome, so I have to really invest myself 100% in a film that I love every frame of

The Complete Interview

Quint: First and foremost, are you a fan of the games?

Neill Blomkamp: From a purely game playing perspective I am a massive fan of the games, but more importantly, i’m a massive fan of the world and universe of Halo, the science fiction world that the games take place inside of.

Quint: Which do you prefer, HALO or HALO 2?

Neill Blomkamp: From a playing perspective I like both. But from a conceptual and story perspective I prefer Halo 1.

Quint: You’ve worked in special effects before and have done many short films, commercials and videos. Did you do shorts like ALIVE IN JOBURG specifically to break into features with something like HALO?

Neill Blomkamp: No, I mean I’ve always wanted to eventually get into directing features, and it’s certainly where I want to be, but there was never a path or a specific plan to do that. Those pieces in a weird way I made for myself, it was just a learning process.
I have to be doing something creative all the time, I like just rolling up my sleeves and just making stuff, for the sake of learning, or experimenting, or messing around, shorts can be better than pretty much anything for that. Commercials I was beginning to find uncreative because your end goal is to sell a product, and music videos are really great, but you can’t really have dialogue, so I just defaulted to making my own pieces on the side of doing commercials, and ironically they seem better known then all the commercials, except that one for Adidas which was basically a short.

Quint: Are you nervous about tackling a movie as big as HALO as your first feature?

Neill Blomkamp: No, I’m not. I certainly respect how complex it is, and how much focus is required. There will be some very hard times, with tons of pressure but you work through it. I am so invested in it from a creative standpoint that my eye just stays on the end goal, I keep focused on making it exactly how I want it and treat every day as a path to that final product, plus the support from the New Zealand team is really amazing, its not like i’m out in the woods alone, they’ve done this back to back for like 10 years.

Quint: What’s your approach to the film? How do you plan on being faithful to the game while giving the audience something new?

Neill Blomkamp: I think you can be faithful to the game and just begin to layer things that have not yet been seen, over the fabric of what exists. You don’t want people who know the game to see the film and not have anything that isn’t new.

Quint: How has working with Weta and Peter Jackson been?

Neill Blomkamp: Working with Weta is amazing. Just such a creative group under one roof, it feels really good for me to able to collaborate with all of them, see the designs start finding their way into reality. Very rewarding, in a way I feel like I’ve found my home, all these people interested in the same stuff.
Peter is really great, a vault of knowledge, not only from a creative perspective, but also on a technical and logistical one.
Learning as much as I can about how to streamline this process and make everything be more efficient, its good to just throw things his way and see how he has already dealt with whatever it is, 100 times before.

Quint: How faithful do you plan on staying to the design of Master Chief’s armor?

Neill Blomkamp: Master Chief is certainly something that I do not want to change too much at all, there are certain things inside the Halo universe that are sacred and he’s the main one.
Having said that, there is a need to revise certain parts of him, just from a purely technical standpoint, he has to actually be able to move, like a human, and the game design right now does not allow for full motion freedom, which we will have to achieve.

Quint: Guy in a suit? CGI creation? Mixture of both?

Neill Blomkamp: Well, the film has to have a feeling of reality, and so that means that I want to keep him real as much as I can, there is a necessity for him to become cg in sequences where a guy in a suit would just not work, but for the most part I am aiming for real.

Quint: Will we see Master Chief’s face?

Neill Blomkamp: You’ll have to wait and see.

Quint: As far as Master Chief’s voice, will you consider Steve Downes, who voiced the character for the games or will you more than likely go with a bigger name?

Neill Blomkamp: It’s just too early to be able to know anything like that yet.

Quint: What do you feel is most important in bringing the Covenant to life?

Neill Blomkamp: Well, the most important thing is that viewer thinks they are looking at something that lives and breathes, and exists, so from an organic standpoint they have to be believable, they also need to be terrifying, and alien, and the best way to start doing that is to break that human silhouette, although many of them are bipedal anatomically, you can still shift the overall body to be something very alien, their motion must be alien too, the audience has to get a kick out of how real and menacing these things are, and how believable they are too.

Quint: Will any of the aliens be done practically?

Neill Blomkamp: Right now there is one of them that might very well end up being all practical.

Quint: How about The Flood? What’s your take on The Flood? That aspect has always been my favorite of the games.

Neill Blomkamp: I absolutely love the flood, more importantly I love infected humans and covenant, so that will absolutely have its place in the film. Halo is a perfect project for me, because it contains so many different things that fascinate me, one of which is the idea of biological evolution, and the flood is essentially a virus, it is a near perfect organism in terms of how resilient it is against natural threats, this feeling of evolution and why organisms evolve a certain way ties into the covenant and even the humans. And then of course on a pure thrill ride basis having the audience run into the flood in a narrow dark hallway is awesome.

Quint: I know this is very early, but will any of Marty O’Donnell’s score from the game make it over to the film? Is he a contender to compose the score for the movie?

Neill Blomkamp: It’s just way too early for any decisions like that

Quint: Are you planning any location shooting or will you be doing mostly green screen work?

Neill Blomkamp: I’m in the process now of sorting through all of our options, figuring all of that out, in the end the method is irrelevant as long as the audience is transported completely believably to where we need to put them, and so that’s the goal that everything needs to revolve around.

Quint: What’s the overall tone you want to strike with the movie? Escapist, big budget action fun? Gritty, realistic future war? Neither? Both?

Neill Blomkamp: Well, I don’t want to give away exactly how I want to be, but, big budget action can certainly look very similar to 100 other films which are big budget action, so my goal is to make something that is honestly unique and a radical departure from stuff we are used to.
I’ve been given the resources and the source material to make something awesome, so I have to really invest myself 100% in a film that I love every frame of, and for me to love every frame means it has to have something that sets it apart.
Fans of the game should love this film, people who don’t know the game should be transported to a place that blows them away for two hours.

Thanks Nelson.

“Question: You’re still producing Halo?
Jackson: Yeah.
Question: What attracted you to Halo?
Jackson: I’m a fan of the game.
Question: But video game movies suck.
Jackson: They do.
Question: So what will be different?
Jackson: Hopefully it won’t suck.
Question: But why not direct?
Jackson: I want a break. I want to have the fun but not the hard work. I just want to be part of the creative team but not actually have the pain.
Question: Is there a director?
Jackson: Not yet, no. We’re talking to some people but we’re going to be shooting that next year.”

The full interview, mostly relating to Kong can be found here: Dark Horizons