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Halo Movie Script in the Works
Alex Garland, the writer of the script for 28 Days Later, has been retained to pen a script for a Halo movie. Voodoo Extreme has the story via Variety, and notes that Microsoft is keeping close creative control over the script writing process.
From TFA, with the bolded text added for empthasis:
Microsoft recently completed a million dollar deal to secure the services of Alex Garland, 28 Days Later and The Beach writer, who is now in the process of penning a screenplay for Halo The Movie.
Is this a first for Microsoft, diversifying beyond simple computers to reach the unwashed masses, but moving into making some money off the big screen?
Not that it's a bad thing, I'm not anti-Microsoft in the business sense (well, perhaps anti-Microsoft in the anti-craptacular products sense), but it's interesting.
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
Finally! Now it'll join such brilliant game to movie adaptations as...
* Mario Brothers
* Tomb Raider
* That fighting one with Raul Julia and Kylie Minogue
* Final Fantasy
* Mortal Combat
* Another Tomb Raider, with the same plot devices
And unless someone puts a plot into this one, it'll suck just like they did.
Is it just that producers see dollar signs everywhere in games, so think they can cash in with minimal work, that the people buying the games are stupid enough to flock to a crap movie just because it ties to the games?
I suspect they forget that games require less plot and character development than movies, as the players themselves supply either or both by the way they play. The result is that Tomb Raider was execrable, Final Fantasy (while having a plot) was dull in the extreme and that in general, games make really bad movies.
The best thing that could be hoped is that the movie would be so action packed with whiz-bang effects that it would distract people from the lack of a plot, pacing or character development so typical of game movies.
I'm not overly hopeful of this one. You can tell, can't you?
Go pick up "Halo: First Strike" by Eric Nylund. Considering it's a book based off an Xbox game, it's not half bad. It covers the start of the Covenant/Human war, as well as the Spartan program that produced Master Chief. Turns out there were quite a few of those wacky Spartans, making it easier to turn into a movie. More characters = more character interaction = more entertaining. (In theory. There are obviously exceptions)