A live-action adaptation of classic video game franchise Halo has been a long time coming, and it’s finally heading to Paramount+ early next year, albeit in much different form than originally intended.
The project was initially set to be a big budget feature film, but after failing to escape from development hell it was reworked as a TV series instead, with Pablo Schrieber starring as Master Chief in the ten-episode effort that boasts Peaky Blinders veteran Otto Bathurst, Ash vs. Evil Dead‘s M.J. Bassett, Wu Assassins alum Roel Reiné and Battle: Los Angeles‘ Jonathan Liebesman among the directorial lineup.
It was all the way back in 2005 that a Halo movie was first announced, with 20th Century Fox and Universal partnering up to co-finance the sci-fi epic. Peter Jackson was set to produce with protege Neill Blomkamp directing, after Guillermo del Toro had dropped out of negotiations. Despite the TV show coming soon, we’re hearing from our sources – the same ones who told us Captain America 4 was in the works with Anthony Mackie long before it was confirmed – that Paramount still want that feature film.
Not only that, but the studio reportedly want Steven Spielberg to helm the pic. While that sounds like a longshot given that he’s one of the greatest and the single most commercially successful director in history, he is involved in the streaming version of Halo as an executive producer, but you’d have to imagine any further movement on the movie is entirely dependent on how critics and audiences react to the series.
