Peter Jackson to Produce 'Halo' Movie

By Nate Mook | Published October 4, 2005, 3:00 PM

Microsoft has tapped the team behind the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy to help bring its popular "Halo" Xbox game to the big screen. LOTR Peter Jackson will join his wife Fran Walsh as executive producers of the film, which will utilize Jackson's production facilities in New Zealand.

Universal Studios, Fox and Microsoft's Bungie game subsidiary that created Halo will aid Jackson in the process. The Halo screenplay -- about futuristic soldier "Master Chief" battling aliens -- was written by novelist Alex Garland. A director is expected to be named in the coming weeks, although the cast has yet to be announced.

Comments

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Halo garnered so much attention because it had a great backstory to motivate the action. That is exactly what the movie will need. The movie's success is by no means certain...
MC's in-game presence will be difficult to put onto the movie screen in a way that non-players of Halo will understand. There is also the very real danger that, after the movie, the game graphics will look comparatively poor, even on xbox360.
I do not want to see another Judge Dred flop, and nor do I want to sit through an intelligence-insulting movie designed to entertain school kids. The Halo story has plenty of material to provide us with a great action movie, backed up with seminal questions and a decent moral backstory, but we will probably get an SFX-fest and no plot at all.

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Hmm so far I have yet to see a game to movie conversion that I would consider to be good. Let's hope that this one is the first.

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One word people, PETER JACKSON. This movie is gonna rock. Say what you will but microsoft isn't fooling around with this thing. They haved taped the best in the business so far. I can wait to hear about the cast. And video game turned movies only sucked cause of the lack of effort put forth. It sure doesnt look like there is a lack of effort here.

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That's two words. lol. But yeah, I hope you're right.

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A good director is a major influence, yes, but it's not what makes the movie a great one. It'll take more than a fantastic director to make a good videogame-based movie.

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Man... I really need to play that game some time...

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In my experience media best travels from Book -> Movie -> Video Game. Any time it moves the opposite direction, it tends to suck....

But I'll hope for the best.

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Lol. Agreed.

I'm not sure what's going on with the whole "let's make a movie out of a game" trend recently...

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oh, i so hope he does it the 'Bad Taste' way, instead of LOTR :o)

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i can just imagine in my mind:

The master chief fighting off orcs

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Holy crap I hope this movie isn't the suxxor.

Now who would play MC?

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I bet Halo won't be better than Street Fighter the movie. That movie rocked!

NOTE: All statements made above are to be interpreted as sarcasm.

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Was that the one with Kylie Minogue? :)

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PWNZORED! This movie may very well be the first video-game movie that DOSN'T suck!

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Then again... maybe it'll follow all game-to-movie conversions and be really really bad.

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There is one movie that originated from a game that in my opinion did alright.

Resident Evil

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Now that is HUGE. I wonder if PJ will take over the helm as Director as well. If anyone can make a great game to movie adaptation i think it would be Peter Jackson.

I just hope the keep the Halo theme song for the movie. That song is just awesome.

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