Halo Movie Deal Moves Closer

Universal and Fox are apparently close to coming up with a deal Microsoft is happy with for the in-the-works Halo film. Gamespot reports that the two movie studios will cofinance the hugely expensive movie title. From the article: "while Universal and Fox's offer is now the only game in town, Microsoft is still unsure if it wants to play ball. Variety and the Times say the agreement is held up on two fronts. First, the two studios requested that Microsoft relinquish its demands and that the Halo movie strictly follow a Bungie-penned "bible," which would ensure that it would not deviate from the Halo mythos or conflict with "sequels" to the game (i.e. Halo 3). The second reported sticking point was Microsoft's insistence that principal shooting begin as soon as possible, possibly as early as this fall."

Comments

ugh

[Gogo0]

Does anyone else see this movie as a $75Mil+ Halo3 commercial meant almost solely to steal thunder from the PS3 and Rev's launches?
Am I the only one who finds that abso-fucking-lutely rediculous?

This is why Hollywood pisses me off....

[Jtheletter]

Here you have M$ and Bungie making what amounts to a reasonable request that the studios not deviate from the universe of the game when creating the Halo movie. Sure, this might mean a larger effects or set budget, or perhaps it means the editing process needs to be a little more careful about what they cut, or that some self-sure studio writer can't use the hyper-excellent catch phrase for the Chief to say and be sound-bited to death in previews. But it seems to me that the studio is getting a lot more in return by respecting this caveat. What Bungie has is an established title and storyline in a well-defined universe, and along with that are hundreds of thousands* of devoted fans who already know the backstory of the games, and thousands more who feel they 'own' part of that universe from literally perticipating in it via the I Love Bees viral marketing adventure. This means that the only thing the studios could possibly do by deviating from Bungie's bible is to screw it up and alienate or tick off a ready-made fan-base for the film.

Think about it, there are tons of gamers salivating over this film I'm sure. But what is going to happen when reviews, leaked scripts, etc start coming out and they find that perhaps major parts of the story they know and love have been changed, and - given the studios' track records - probably for the worse? They're going to snub the film, that's what. Maybe not enough to make it tank, but probably a sizable number will choose to wait for the DVD, or not see it all. We geeks are extremely pedantic, we love details, it's what we do. Mucking about with 'our' culture is only insulting to us, and we recognize and resent it.

I know it takes more than just the /. crowd to make money for a film, and we do overinflate our importance, after all you need the public at large to like the film as well to be truly successful. But I think that with Halo, being as well defined and straightforward a story/universe as it is, there shouldn't be any need to alter it to dumb it down (or up) for the masses. Hollywood just wants to maintain its monopoly of culture and cater to the lowest common denominator. To paraphrase Chris Rock in another bad movie: 'We [the studios] tried that, and we got damn rich doing it. But maybe now it's time to try a different way.' After all what's the worse that could happen? It's not like the Bungie version of the film could be any worse than the Mario Bros Movie. Right? God I hope not.

* re: hundreds of thousands of fans - I have no idea what the number is but it's got to be big. maybe millions? I dunno, I just pulled a number out of my butt, let it go already.