Fol­low­ing much spec­u­la­tion, bungie​.net have announced the lat­est team mem­bers to join them on the live action Halo movie adap­ta­tion. The Halo movie has already signed on the pro­duc­ers Mary Par­ent (Pleas­antville, 40 Year Old Vir­gin) and Scott Stu­ber (The Skele­ton Key); no real sur­prises or world renowned qual­i­ties observ­able here, although nei­ther have been in the indus­try for long. They have since teamed up with Peter Sch­les­sel (cham­pion of SWAT, Charlie’s Angels 2 and Spider-man) and Bungie reports “[they have] accom­plished unimag­in­ably won­der­ful things”. One of these things is secur­ing an Exec­u­tive Pro­ducer, a highly respected movie pio­neer — Peter Jack­son (Lord of the Rings, King Kong).

This deal also secures the spec­tac­u­lar visual effects team Weta Dig­i­tal; mas­ters behind Lord of the Rings and Gollum.

Bungie: “From fab­ri­cat­ing Covenant weapons to build­ing life-sized Fore­run­ner struc­tures to accom­plish­ing shot after shot of com­plex live-action/CG inte­gra­tion – sim­ply put, there’s no group of peo­ple we’d rather have real­ize the Halo uni­verse on screen.”

Quot­ing pro­duc­ers Mary and Scott: “First, let me just say how hon­ored and excited Scott and I are to be involved in this project. As huge fans of the game our­selves we know how high the bar is. We’ve made it our mis­sion to try and involve the absolute very best peo­ple one can imag­ine in every capac­ity. Hav­ing devel­oped a great rela­tion­ship with Peter and Fran through the extra­or­di­nary Kong expe­ri­ence, and see­ing first hand just how unique a film­mak­ing envi­ron­ment they have crafted, we approached them about the pos­si­bil­ity of com­ing aboard to Exec Pro­duce. Not sur­pris­ingly, they were already avid fans of the game, and given our exist­ing short­hand, they said yes! To be able to con­tinue our rela­tion­ship with them – on HALO of all projects – is really a dream come true for us in the biggest pos­si­ble way.”

See the VIDEO announce­ment: Game Trail­ers

Source: Bungie​.net

This web­site, as part of the triv­ial being net­work, shall aim to pro­vide you with the lat­est news con­cern­ing this devel­op­ing project. Through our grow­ing forum net­work, RSS feeds and reg­u­lar updates we will endeav­our to pro­vide you with all the juicy details.

A sum­mary thus far:

Alex Gar­land (28 Days Later, The Beach–novels) writes the script:
A few months back it was con­firmed that Alex Gar­land had agreed to write the script for the Halo movie.

Bungie​.net: The Great Hol­ly­wood Jour­ney — Part 1: This arti­cle pro­vides the back­bone for the adap­ta­tion. It gives insight into the process of con­ver­sion; high­light­ing issues such as whether or not to sell the rights com­pletely, prob­lems with keep­ing Bungie in the pic­ture, find­ing a writer and why they chose Alex Gar­land. It por­trays the integrity Bungie wish to keep within the project and the ded­i­ca­tion to ensure it doesn’t erode into a Doom-ed mistake.

Alex on ‘wor­ry­ing whether the film will match the games’:
“I’d say peo­ple are right to worry. I’m wor­ried. In fact, every­one — in par­tic­u­lar those work­ing on the film — should be wor­ried. In the case of Lord of the Rings, I’d guess that Peter Jack­son had plenty of sleep­less nights, think­ing — am I doing the right thing? Am I doing the books jus­tice? And Lord of The Rings shows Jackson’s efforts to avoid his fears on pretty much every frame. So I’d hope the direc­tor of Halo has exactly the same level of com­mit­ment and concern.”

Fund­ing and the com­pa­nies involved:
Towards the end of August the pre­cise deal Microsoft and the pro­duc­tion stu­dios had agreed to was announced. Many stu­dios turned down Microsoft’s A-list offer, this was due to hefty require­ments set by the soft­ware king: “$10 mil­lion against 15 per­cent of the gross (whichever is higher), a below-the-line bud­get of $75 mil­lion (bud­get before hir­ing actors and crew), near-immediate pro­duc­tion ofand a large say in the cre­ative devel­op­ment of the movie.” Fox and Uni­ver­sal stu­dios agreed to co-operatively take on the project pay­ing Microsoft $5 mil­lion against 10 per­cent of the gross. Uni­ver­sal will con­trol the pro­duc­tion and Amer­i­can dis­tri­b­u­tion whilst Fox will over­see all inter­na­tional distribution.

Resources:

1. The Halo IMDB Page
2. Bungie​.net: Great Hol­ly­wood Jour­ney – Part 1
3. Bungie​.net: Great Hol­ly­wood Jour­ney – Part 2
4. Bungie​.net: Great Hol­ly­wood Jour­ney – Part 3
5. Vari​ety​.com: “Halo makes a date”:
“Mas­ter Chief is gun­ning for the bigscreen in sum­mer ’07. Fox and Uni­ver­sal have closed their deal to make a movie based on Microsoft’s hit vidgame “Halo,” with plans for a tent­pole in two years. Stu­dios will pay the tech giant $5 mil­lion against 10% of the gross.…”
6. BBC: Halo Announce­ment
7. IGN: Halo movie a bad idea?
8. Game­Trail­ers: Halo Movie Announce­ment Video
9. Halo goes Hol­ly­wood in 2007