Peter Jackson to Executive Produce Halo Movie

e03179 writes "According to Reuters, 'the Oscar-winning creative team behind the The Lord of the Rings films, including director Peter Jackson, has been named to run the production of the upcoming film based on Microsoft Corp.'s blockbuster Halo video game, the company said on Tuesday.' The film will be shot in New Zealand and Jackson's production and post-production studios will be used. World-wide release is set for mid-2007 by Fox and Universal. The then rumor was started by Gamespot two weeks ago and was previously covered by Slashdot." Okay, *now* I'm interested. More details available on the Bungie site.

Comments

I've got a good title...

[catdevnull]

How about "Red vs Blue"? ...oh, wait...

Re:I've got a good title...

[AndersOSU]

Not only that but grey and brown would really have capture the public's level of interest in 2000.

Re:I've got a good title...

[nmb3000]

Uh, I think you missed the point.

Red vs Blue is a machinima series done by some fans of Halo. Been going on for several years, won some awards, and become the defacto standard to compare new machinima series to.

It's actually got some very funny parts, especially if you're familiar with Halo.

Re:I've got a good title...

[ericdano]

Brown coats did win in the end.

Re:I've got a good title...

[catdevnull]

Oops. I should have linked the roosterteeth website so everyone would get the joke...

Re:I've got a good title...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for sticking that spoiler in there, shithead.

Re:I've got a good title...

[Mercano]

I think he is refering to Firefly fans, not the Independent army. In SAT terms, Browncoat:Firefly::Trekie:Star Trek, but without the 30 years of pimpely baggage. (Sorry if I missed some tags.)

3 Hours?

[mysqlrocks]

Yes, but my question is this: Will the movie be 3+ hours long?

Re:3 Hours?

[Mikey-San]

Yes, but my question is this: Will the movie be 3+ hours long?

Not without an ending.

(I kid, I kid.)

Re:3 Hours?

[Jambon]

Yes, but my question is this: Will the movie be 3+ hours long?

Yes, and it will start out with a view of Halo, and a deep dark voice saying:

"One ring to rule them all....."

Re:3 Hours?

[Gothic_Walrus]

Just wait until the four disc extended edition is released...

Re:3 Hours?

[Mercano]

Yes, but they will just keep redressing the same half dozen sets and pretending its a new area.

From the DVD comentary:
"And for this scene, we really only buit a 10 foot by 10 foot section of the library set and then digitaly replicated over 100 times it to get that truly expansive feel."

You knew it was going to happen...

[Spock the Baptist]

Halo becoming a movie was inevitable. That was obvious ever since Bungie previewed Halo at MacWorld some years ago.

Re:You knew it was going to happen...

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

[quote] Halo becoming a movie was inevitable. [/qoute]

But should be made? That is the question :)

I think it will be a boring film. Frankly i dont movies made based on videogames. I'd rather just have really good videogames with cinematic quality story telling.

Re:You knew it was going to happen...

[F_Scentura]

I don't mind a mix of both. For that reason, I'm looking forward to the upcoming Silent Hill flick :)

Re:You knew it was going to happen...

[tgd]

Unlike some games *cough*doom*cough*, I think the Halo "universe" and story has enough depth to make a real good, real interesting movie. There's more to it than running around blowing shit up in the dark.

Now, that said, they probably won't touch on any of that. But it could happen.

Re:You knew it was going to happen...

[tbannist]

Havent they already done a book and a movie?

Though, I suppose maybe this time they may actually stick closer to the plot from the novel.

Re:You knew it was going to happen...

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially movies based on boring video games. At least pick one with a good story or engaging characters. Fuck, pick one with decent gameplay!!!

Re:You knew it was going to happen...

[Okonomiyaki]

Come on! Doom is going to be awesome! It's got The Rock, who would never make a bad movie, it's got lots of guns that shoot out blue beams or something, and best of all, it's got plenty of "first-person" scenes to make it just like the game! What a great idea! If Halo isn't 100% first-person, I just don't see how it can compete.

Re:You knew it was going to happen...

[Khuffie]

This is either sarcasm at its finest, or idiocy at its finest. I'm going with the benefit of the doubt on this one and go with sarcasm.

Yaup

[GoMMiX]

Halo is the perfect example of how Microsoft can buy a great product and put it's name on it like they had crap to do with the development.

Re:Yaup

[Surt]

Same thing with bungie though, bungie just paid some programmers and artists to make the game, and then slapped their name on it.

Re:Yaup

[Threni]

They'll probably make more from the film than from the xbox and game.

Re:Yaup

[ScentCone]

Halo is the perfect example of how Microsoft can buy a great product and put it's name on it like they had crap to do with the development.

Or, like Disney with a Pixar film. Or American Airlines with a Boeing aircraft. People who put a product out in front of that product's consumers/users generally have their name associated with it. But I suppose you're the sort that never reads the credits, and assumes that no one else does, either. Do you really think that MS's cash, audience, game platform, etc., has nothing to do with the success of the game? I think Pixar's work is fantastic... but I know that the success of say, the Toy Story franchise, is at least partly owed to Disney's professional marketing teams - even though they didn't color a single pixel. Don't pretend that marketing isn't important. Great games with no marketing frequently fail. Mediocre games with lots of marketing often get results. But great games with great marketing really attract an audience, and that's why it's done. Disney coughed up a lot of money into marketing and distribution in its partnership with Pixar, just like MS does with the games they front. Of course, things with Pixar/Disney have gotten a little rough lately. That will definitely be too bad for Disney, since only Pixar can do what Pixar does.

Come on, admit it. You're worried that Jackson will make a very cool (or at least, successful) movie, and that MS will get a little street cred buff as a result of having been involved with the product's successfully large audience.

Re:Yaup

[twiddlingbits]

Disney and Pixar were complementary companies. Disney can develop the Graphics and Pixar can't do the Marketing. Both have suffered from the split-up.

Re:Yaup

[sunwolf]

Think of it this way - if Bungie wasn't owned by Microsoft, would they be putting out a Halo movie now?

No.

Re:Yaup

[Lucractius]

I thought MS-DOS was.

Re:Yaup

[hambonewilkins]

Um, considering Halo 2 sold $125 mil. in its first day I would have to say NO.

Re:Yaup

[poot_rootbeer]

Um, considering Halo 2 sold $125 mil. in its first day I would have to say NO.

Um, considering that a game console title typically retails for 3-5 times the cost of a movie ticket, and that day-of-release performance has a lot more limitations on the movie side of things (finite number of seats and showings, etc.), I would have to say MAYBE.

Re:Yaup

[Anonymous Coward]

crap. This is patently false. Jason Jones worked on Halo and IS bungie (at least when you think of good bungie ideas) I bet you hate bungie because they were willing to sell themselves to microsoft for a fortune rather than continue plodding on as a mac developer.

Re:Yaup

[Valthonis]

This may have been off-topic, but a troll? GoMMiX has a point. My hope is that MS can keep from making the movie suck in the same way they kept out of Bungie's way and kept from ruining the games. The fact that PJ is involved in encouraging. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed... and by the time mid-2007 rolls around, they'll be STUCK that way!

Re:Yaup

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of it this way - if Bungie wasn't owned by Microsoft, would they be putting out a Halo movie now?

No.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Re:Yaup

[CardiganKiller]

Add the so many million that Microsft lost on the X-Box, I know I cost Microsoft a cool $76 by only purchasing Halo 2 and a $10 copy of GTAIII with my X-Box.

Profit loss per XBox: $100 per $199 console.
Units sold since 2001: Approx 15M.

Let's say the loss of $1.5B is wildly exaggerated because Microsoft began selling their unit for $150 at some point in time (I don't remember when). Well consoles bought at $150 lose $50, assuming their manufacturing process didn't get any cheaper. If all 15M consoles were bought at 15M, then that would make a loss of $750M.

Now, I've also heard that buying more than 10 games for your XBox will profit MS from the royalties or whatever such fees exist for developing on their platform. According to this survey, Only 50% of XBox unit owners purchased more than 10 games. Let's be statistically illogical and say this cuts their losses in half, now we're still at $375M.

This magically makes the profit of the XBox and Halo2 combined come out to -$125M. Now we have a reasonable profit goal for Peter Jackson to achieve with this movie. He can probably take a bigger nap than he did making King Kong. I actually saw the whole video documentary of Bryan Singer having to come in and direct for Peter Jackson 'cause he was napping on the couch. It was superb.

Re:Yaup

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot.

Re:Yaup

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh...actually, lowering the price, when the manufacture does not get cheaper, would increase the loss, not decrease. If you make something for, say, $250 (just an estimate), sell it to retailers at $150, (who then increase to $199), you lose $100. You said "assuming the manufacturing process does not get cheaper", so make for $250, sell to retailer at $100, makes a loss of $150. Check your maths, dude.

Re:Yaup

[Dracolytch]

Come on, admit it. You're worried that Jackson will make a very cool (or at least, successful) movie, and that MS will get a little street cred buff as a result of having been involved with the product's successfully large audience.

---

No, I'm worried that they're going to make another Mario Bros / Mortal Kombat Annihilation / Doom (It's gonna suck folks) movie. That I will inexorably be drawn to it because it's a franchise I know, and that I will hate myself for 2 days for falling for that trap.

~D

Re:Yaup

[ScentCone]

No, I'm worried that they're going to make another Mario Bros / Mortal Kombat Annihilation / Doom (It's gonna suck folks) movie. That I will inexorably be drawn to it because it's a franchise I know, and that I will hate myself for 2 days for falling for that trap.

OK, I'll buy that. There's very little that's more annoying than the sense of being betrayed by a talented person's treatment of some other work that you enjoy. I'm reminded of some early attempts at dealing with Tolkien, for example - that sort of stuff just leaves a really bad taste in your mouth. You know, like Dolf Lundgren doing He-Man. Oh wait, sometimes it's crap to start with, actually. But I get your point.

That works out well

[katana]

By the time he's done with Halo, it should be just about time to start filming Duke Nukem Forever.

Re:That works out well

[parasonic]

By the time he's done with Halo, it should be just about time to start filming Duke Nukem Forever.

...with the sequel Duke Nukem Begins and prequels Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem Returns.

Re:That works out well

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Duke Nukem Begins was a rebooting of the franchise after the horrible Duke Nukem and Bombshell.

That scream you just heard...

[Verteiron]

... was Larry Niven, who would probably give his left nut to get someone like Jackson to do Ringworld.

Re:That scream you just heard...

[$RANDOMLUSER]

That would be a good fit, since Niven's ego is larger than Sauron's (who Jackson already directed).

Re:That scream you just heard...

[Lucractius]

if only there was a way to turn ego into cash by using the large egos of others as a fuel sorce...

Re:That scream you just heard...

[Anonymous Coward]

Larry Niven giving his left nut would explain the scream...

At least it won't matter if he changes the plot

[aurelian]

and the characters, like he did with Lord of the Rings.

Re:At least it won't matter if he changes the plot

[mysqlrocks]

Well, if he had not changed anything the movies would have been about 100 hours long.

Re:At least it won't matter if he changes the plot

[Anonymous Coward]

Even most purists agree the adaptations made for film were appropriate.

Re:At least it won't matter if he changes the plot

[Golias]

Master Chief will be written out to make way for a Tom Bombadil character, in order to finally quell all those whining LOTR poetry nerds. (That's right, all six of them.)

Re:At least it won't matter if he changes the plot

[Surt]

Tolkien fans just really have to learn to put up with the fact that anyone with a love for fantasy thinks they can rewrite Tolkien's stories better, and that they are right.

Re:At least it won't matter if he changes the plot

[Anonymous Coward]

They wern't???

Re:At least it won't matter if he changes the plot

[Fallingcow]

Thank god someone else has this opinion.

I though I was the only one.

Re:At least it won't matter if he changes the plot

[Grishnakh]

And the problem with this is what?

Re:At least it won't matter if he changes the plot

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree with your comment completely. I'm not saying Tolkien's ideas and world were greater than any ever will be. I'm saying that anyone who is writing fantasy novels is going to vary greatly in their story-telling. Everyone's universe is going to vary slightly.

Where my argument is in the literary. Tolkien was an excelent writer because he used the english language very well (as it is one of the most lousy languages in history, ask any linguist, english is likely at the bottom of their list). So that's an accomplishment in and of itself. I'm not perfect, but ugh...

Example: My girlfriend is fond of a certain author who I don't wish to bash, so he will remain nameless (but not genderless). She asked me to read one of the books (his first, that is why I will not give the name, he may be better now). It is some of the most difficult to read, tripe for english. Verb tenses are commonly off. Many times he will use the same word over four up to eight times in one sentance. Some people may not notice this or care, but it's extremely tiring on the mind if you tend to read every word (I understand that a lot of readers will merely skim the contents of a paragraph and only read it if contains needed info, speed reading or whatever). The author also stuffs his chapters with 'fluff' as some english professors I had would call it. Meaning, reminders of past events that aren't needed, or are given too often. This author prefers to remind you what the charecter thinks or feels constantly; absolutely refusing to allow you to reflect or simply remember why the charecter would act that way. Oh.. here comes the off-topic mods... I'm posting anonamously.

Re:At least it won't matter if he changes the plot

[Surt]

You're definitely not alone. About half of the people who have actually read the books are on our side. About 48% think the books are pretty good. And then there is this rabid remainder who are obsessed with the books being some sort of divine hand me down like the bible, and scream and yell if people don't bow down and worship the author.

It's the loud yelling that makes people think the books must be something special.

Personally, my theory is just that he was one of the earlier authors to get published in the genre, and so now people who want to can try to claim that everything else in the field is derivative, and nothing else is as good. But from a more rational book reading stand point, it is pretty clear that several more recent authors have far exceeded LOTR.

Re:At least it won't matter if he changes the plot

[Anonymous Coward]

So it seems that, for the eleven-year-olds who are modding this topic, making jokes about Peter Jackson is trolling.

Guess I'll have to add this to my list of topics, along with Firefly and star trek, which are humor-free zones.

Re:At least it won't matter if he changes the plot

[Anonymous Coward]

No theatres would have booked the movies, no one's girlfriend could have been dragged to see them, and, more important, no studio would have coughed up $400M to make them in the first place.

People who criticize Jackson's interpretation of the LotR trilogy are literally impossible to please.

Re:At least it won't matter if he changes the plot

[Fallingcow]

Eh, I don't really like any of the works in the genre that he was trying to imitate, either. Beowulf, for instance? Hated it.

And to be totally honest I never read the second two books of LOTR. I got within about 40-50 pages (IIRC) of the end of FOTR and couldn't take any more, so in fact I never even completely finished the first book. After going through 75 pages of Hobbit geneology (Jesus, it was like reading the "Begats" section of the Bible), another 50 or so of Bombadil, one or two interesting action scenes and some sort of OK stuff about the Elves, I just couldn't take take the Mines of Moria. That was one long, boring stretch too many. I guess I must have stopped just a few pages before the "You shall not pass!" part, which might have been an OK read, but hardly worth all the other boring stuff.

Maybe it didn't help that pretty much the only fantasy I'd read at the time were the first two books of the "Shannara" series (I'd mostly been into sci-fi and "normal" fiction before that), and the first one of those is basically a condensed, less-boring ripoff of the LOTR trilogy. I don't mean a ripoff like "all fantasy rips off LOTR!", I mean that it actually parallels the events in the LOTR trilogy almost exactly. I dunno, maybe that killed the experience for me. Or maybe they just really do suck that bad.

So?

[Musteval]

From Wikipedia:
An executive producer of a motion picture is typically a producer who is not necessarily involved in any creative or technical aspects of production. They generally handle business issues, and may be a financier of a movie. Some executive producers act as representatives of the studio or production company that is releasing or producing a film, occasionally being credited as Executive in charge of production.

So, um, why does it matter that he's doing this?

Re:So?

[Mr Guy]

For the exact reason it got posted here. The Exec. Producer's entire job is to raise money and hype. Often, they do that with their name alone.

Re:So?

[Musteval]

But nobody should care.

Oh right, people are idiots.

I get it now.

Re:So?

[iammaxus]

The man with the money usually is the man with real control. I can't say I have any real knowledge of the specific case of executive producers, but I would imagine that wether the creative team likes it or not, creative control ends up in the hands of the producer. I think this explains how some production companies (like Fox Searchlight Pictures, IMO) can consistently create good movies just by doing the "business" end of making movies well.

Re:So?

[AndersOSU]

I read your comment, and at first I chuckled,

then I got a little sad,

then I thought about it and realized that marketing should serve a purpose, it should tell you whats really worth buying, and lesser products should get less marketing. Too bad the process has been bastardized since at least the '80s and good marketing no longer means good product.

then I thought a little harder and wondered if that was niave thinking that marketing used to serve a purpose other than hyping product good or bad. Cigarettes were successfully marketed after all...

ok im done ranting now

Re:So?

[JFMulder]

Because it's his company and part of his money that is involved in the project. If he doesn't like it, he won't pay for it.

Re:So?

[Pluvius]

Producers handle the overarching direction of a project, while directors are the ones who handle the direction of elements within a project. Since movies very rarely have much of an overarching direction (since that would require planned sequels), movie directors are far more important than movie producers as far as creative control goes. The opposite is true with TV shows, as they have many episodes a year (making the producer more important) and each episode tends to be much shorter than a movie (making the director less important).

Film producers did once have more creative control, but that was because of the studio system, where there were no independent films on the radar and the people working under the producers had to grit their teeth and bear it. Now-a-days "the man with the money" really doesn't mean much to the movie itself; the executive producer basically exerts his creative control by trying to keep the movie on budget and giving it the final OK. Now making a movie financially successful, on the other hand...

Rob

Re:So?

[nine-times]

I'll let you in on a little secret: "Producer" credits have no set meaning. It doesn't necessarily mean you're involved creatively, but it doesn't mean you're not. It doesn't mean you've put up your own money and handled business issues yourself, but it doesn't mean you didn't.

This gets particularly hairy when you hear titles like "Executive Producer" or "Co-Producer". These can be almost honorary titles. However, in a movie, when you have a creative type who's listed as "executive producer", there's a good chance he's running the show, but has chosen not to direct the thing himself (i.e. Lucas and Star Wars).

Due to his success with the LoTR movies, I'm guessing he's not hurting for work/money, and therefore, if he's getting involved with Halo, it's probably because he's interested in it. Meaning he probably won't be creatively detached. Meaning, if you're a Peter Jackson fan, it's good news for Halo.

Re:So?

[nine-times]

And for those who will correct me on the "Lucas and Star Wars" thing, no, he didn't direct ALL of them, but he was the Executive Producer on all of them, and very involved with the creative aspects of all of them.

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he brings with him the Weta Special/Digital Effects crew.

Who will Play the Aliens?

[Evil W1zard]

I wonder if he will finger through his Rolodex and use all of the hobbit extras to play the little freakish alien guys that run away from you on easy...

Re:Who will Play the Aliens?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes I think Wikipedia has too much useless information for it's own good:

In the Halo (video game series), made for Xbox and PC by Bungie Studios, the grunts are the cannon fodder-type regular army of the empire of the alien coalition called The Covenant. Called Unggoy by their superiors, they are named for both their social status and their curious speech patterns, which are high-pitched and outrageously hilarious. They can use a variety of weapons including plasma pistols, needlers, plasma grenades, plasma rifles (although they are not authorized to, they can if it is necessary), fuel rod cannons, plasma cannons, shade turrets, those funky prong turrets, and, on occasion, privileged grunts can ride the light attack vehicles known as Ghosts.

Although they are dutiful followers of the Covenant religion, they are motivated more out of fear of their squad leaders, the Elites, than by personal devotion to their gods. Grunts, in general, lead a fairly depressing life. They live mainly to feed en masse at Covenant food nipples, and will not resist talking about them incessantly. Between the grunts there are separate levels of authority, marked by the color of their armor, which is made to simulate their icy methane-atmospheric swamp homeworld. Without proper sources of methane environments, grunts will suffocate and act like fish out of water. The levels of the grunt authority go as follows, from the bottom of the chain of command up:

        * Red - Orange - These Major and Minor grunts are the grunts of the grunts, the bottom of the Covenant barrel. They are considered cannon fodder by all of their superiors and are used exactly as such.

        * Black - Black-armored grunts are Special Ops grunts. They are used for more important missions and have the ability to use Elite-style active camouflage. The Special Ops Elites still use them as cannon fodder though.

        * Green - White - Grunts with green or white armor are "tech grunts" and are very proficient with many different vehicles and weapons.

After the Grunts, along with the Hunters and their Elite superiors were cast out of the Covenant, they side with the United Nations Space Command. The Heretic Grunts are equipped with an X-shaped methane airtank with pumps that are connected to their mask and they are less cowardly than their Covenant counterparts.

Re:Who will Play the Aliens?

[jo_ham]

They run away from you on "Legendary" mode too, just don't chase them for target practice or the Elites you didn't immediately spot will pick you off.

My only major gripe with the game was that you had to leave the extremely useful pistol behind. It was awesome for taking down Elites (and Hunters when they showed up) but you couldn't justify using a weapon slot for it when you have a shotgun and an Elite's plasma rifle (or the sniper rifle).

Re:Who will Play the Aliens?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if he will finger through his Rolodex and use all of the hobbit extras to play the little freakish alien guys that run away from you on easy...

I also wonder if he will finger his rolodex.

Finally.

[Brantano]

Finally hollywood is making some good decisions. I am very glad that Uwe Boll didnt get his chance to create this movie. Maybe videogame movies are starting to get the attention of critically acclaimed producers and directors and we wont have anymore craptastic movies like Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil, and countless others. This is a step in the right direction for both hollywood and game movies alike. I just -might- get opening tickets for this.

Re:Finally.

[shoptroll]

I thought Uwe Boll is a director? This is the exec. producer slot, not the director's chair. Boll could still enter the picture here.

Re:Finally.

[Saige]

My understanding is that there are loopholes in German law which has somehow been used by Uwe Boll and his financiers. Essentially, they make the movie, it tanks horribly, they're able to take some sort of tax write-off which in the end allows them to MAKE money. In other words, they intentionally made the movies so completely bad.

However, this loophole is supposed to be closed next year, so we may see Uwe Boll out of a job, and gamers around the world rejoicing.

I belive there's something about it on Wikipedia, but the site's not responding for me at the moment... :(

Re:Finally.

[Golias]

What's more... it doesn't really matter who is producing it.

There has never been a good movie made based on a video game.

Never.

I'm going to wait until they actually make a film worth watching, just once, before I ever give a damn about pre-release hype involving a video game movie.

Besides, I'm too busy watching "Serenity" over and over right now.

Re:Finally.

[AndersOSU]

Yeah but just wait for the crazy taxi movie.

Re:Finally.

[Munk]

You must have never seen Mortal Kombat...well....what about Mario Brothers...ok...try....ahh screw it, you're right.

Re:Finally.

[j-joshers]

Uwe Boll films are fantastically horrible and I, for one, dont care if someone decides to make a stupid, worthless movie based on Alone in the Dark/House of the Dead (and Im a gamer). Quite frankly, it speaks more of the worthless, juvenile stories/scripts in games than of the director - Uwe Boll didnt make Super Mario Bros: The Movie (which was oddly pretentious). Pick games that have good potential as movies, and Im not sure Halo does. Of course Hollywood is just a giant pit of whorish cash-grabbing so who cares.

Re:Finally.

[UnknownSoldier]

Depends on your defintion of "good"

Tomb Raider was half decent.

Re:Finally.

[Golias]

Tomb Raider was half decent.

I must have missed that half.

And Spielburg to Direct...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pong.
The touching movie about two lines and the square ball they share.

Has Hollywood run out of ideas?

willie

Re:And Spielburg to Direct...

[Aeron65432]

What are you talking about?

Spielberg already directed a World Famous Movie of Pong!

Re:And Spielburg to Direct...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes

Re:And Spielburg to Direct...

[Spock the Baptist]

It's already been done. It was called the Pong Show... ...oh wait!?!

Never mind...

"Breathe deep the gathering gloom,
Watch lights fade from every room.
Bedsitter people look back and lament
Another day's useless energy is spent.
Impassioned lovers wrestle as one;
Lonely man cries for love and has none;
New mother picks up and suckles her son;
Senior citizens wish they were young.
Cold-hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colours from our sight,
Red is grey is yellow white
But we decide which is right
And which is an illusion

POOOOOOOOONNNNNG!"

Re:And Spielburg to Direct...

[grayson_DEV]

Has Hollywood run out of ideas?

is that a rhetorical question?

Re:And Spielburg to Direct...

[hawks5999]

And the award for Rhetorical Question of the Year is: "Has Hollywood run out of ideas?" "Has Hollywood run out of ideas?" couldn't be here to accept as he is on location for The Transformer's Movie

Re:And Spielburg to Direct...

[Have Blue]

You may have thought you were joking, but this won an Oscar.

Re:And Spielburg to Direct...

[MrScience]

I think it would be a bit more violent. (direct flash link)

Re:And Spielburg to Direct...

[Savatte]

If Speilberg directed Pong, the two paddles would be parents and the square would br more drawn to the mother paddle, because the father would be emotionally distant. In the end, the little square breaks free of the smothering of its parents and learns to live & love again.

Seems only appropriate to mention Doom

[apankrat]

http://www.doommovie.com/

Went to see Serenity this weekend and they showed Doom trailer that
featured nice shots of something being poked at with a chainsaw :)

The story line seemed to be unintrusively good too - "Mars. Horrible
disaster. If it breathes, shoot it."

Opens in late October 2005.

Re:Seems only appropriate to mention Doom

[sTalking_Goat]

I saw the Doom trailer with Serenity too. The entire audience laughed ass off. Have they learned nothing from Uwe Boll and the disaster that was House of the Dead. There's nothing stupider than trying to make a movie look like a videogame. It's like trying to make Swordfish taste like Kobe beef.

I wish Jackson luck but there has never been a good movie based on a game (and vice versa.)Maybe he can break the curse.

Re:Seems only appropriate to mention Doom

[nb caffeine]

au contraire on the "vice versa":

example 1: Goldeneye 007 on N64
example 2: I heard riddick was good, havent played it yet


alright, forget the second example, bond was good enough to break the mold. It can be done, but only by a good team that does something amazing.

Re:Seems only appropriate to mention Doom

[VendingMenace]

good game baised on a movie = Chronicals of riddick, escape from butcher bay

or does that count? I dont know

Re:Seems only appropriate to mention Doom

[Thud457]

I heard Stevie Wonder was hired on as consulting cinematographer on that one!

Re:Seems only appropriate to mention Doom

[Wiwi Jumbo]

Let me stand up for the beating I so richly deserve.

I will submit that there has been one good Video Game movie. And that movie is:

(deep breath)

Mortal Kombat.

Think about it, every charater is introduced in like the first 15 min's with a nice clipped explination of who they are and why they're there. The story fills you in on everything you need to know as to what is actually going on. And it's fun. :) Plus, there is *one* drop of blood in a movie based off of Mortal Kombat! That's pretty funny.

The fights are energetic and the "super moves" aren't stupid.

It's simply the high water mark in VG movies. Tho' I can't say it doesn't need to be surpassed. ;)

I also could have given the first Resident Evil movie, but I never played the game so I don't know just how faithful it stays.

Now, if you excuse me, I'm just going to curl up in the fetal posistion over here and await my abuse... :)

Re:Seems only appropriate to mention Doom

[robertjw]

I wish Jackson luck but there has never been a good movie based on a game

Wrong, there have been PLENTY of good movies made from video games:

• Super Mario Brothers
• Wing Commander
• Mortal Kombat
• Street Fighter
• Double Dragon

Re:Seems only appropriate to mention Doom

[tbannist]

I played that, it was at best an ok game with Riddick strapped on to it to sell extra copies.

Re:Seems only appropriate to mention Doom

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

I saw it too.
I simply hope that they dont overdo the whole first person thing. it could get a little too kitchy.
that said, I'm totally going to see it.
and I'm going to enjoy the hell out of the trailer each time i go back to see serenity again.

Re:Seems only appropriate to mention Doom

[Mercano]

Went to see Serenity this weekend and they showed Doom trailer that featured nice shots of something being poked at with a chainsaw :)

I thought that creature belonged more in a Half Life movie then a Doom movie. Looks alot like a houndeye to me.

That's good but..

[marevan]

Rarely does the director (+team) do one great movie and proceed to make the next movie as great. I mean, it has a chance of becoming a good movie, but the background is not even close to the profoundness of booktrilogy, after all, we're talking about the game here.

Money?

[CSHARP123]

As part of their deal with the global software giant and No. 2 video game console maker, Universal and Fox will pay Microsoft $5 million plus a percentage of movie ticket sales. The price is capped at 10 percent of domestic box office receipts.
So if the movie makes $50 mil domestically, All Microsoft gets is $5 mil. They were negotiating for more I guess MS was shown the middle finger.

Re:Money?

[SquisherX]

As part of their deal with the global software giant and No. 2 video game console maker, Universal and Fox will pay Microsoft $5 million plus a percentage of movie ticket sales. The price is capped at 10 percent of domestic box office receipts.

So if the movie makes $50 mil domestically, All Microsoft gets is $5 mil. They were negotiating for more I guess MS was shown the middle finger.


Taking 10 percent of gross box office receipts is taking a decent portion of the profit. 10 percent gross is a good deal for a licencee with no financial risk

Re:Money?

[PaxTech]

So if the movie makes $50 mil domestically, All Microsoft gets is $5 mil.

Microsoft also gets a ton of hype and free promotion for their Halo sequels. You could think of the movie as a commercial for the Halo video games, a commercial that not only does Microsoft not have to pay for, they actually GET paid $5 million for it. Then somebody else spends a fortune marketing the movie, which spreads the Halo name far and wide without Microsoft spending a dime. It's free marketing! Microsoft should be paying them to make the movie, but then Bill Gates didn't get rich by writing a bunch of checks.. "Buy 'em out, boys!"

bad experince

[Muppski]

I dont have any good experince with games becoming movies. It will probly be overrated and suck ...

My prediction

Re:bad experince

[BigZaphod]

That's true. I feared the worst for King Kong until I realized it wasn't based on Donkey Kong...

The Hobbit?

[j1m 5n0w]

What about the Hobbit? I know it's just a rumor that he might produce it, but it doesn't look likely to happen anytime soon in any case.

Re:The Hobbit?

[Mr Guy]

Direct. We want him to direct it, not necessarily to produce it. Producers make money, and are only very rarely involved in the artistic "vision".

Re:The Hobbit?

[j1m 5n0w]

I stand corrected.

Re:The Hobbit?

[Kaboom13]

Having worked on some movies, I have found the importance of the producer is inversly proportional to the reputation of the director. The executive producer generally represents the money backing the movie, and if the director is a no-name, the producers will push creative decisions they think will make money. It's all part of the Hollywood system of making LOTS of mediocre movies that do decently at the box office. The studios know there is pretty much a formula to making a movie that will make money, and they follow it. As a director gets a reputation for making good movies, the backers will generally give him (or her) more freedom to expirement. This results in some really good movies, but also some very very bad ones. The deal with Peter Jackson and Halo is probably just a publicity move. Executive producer is a job that requires no day to day presence on the set and will in this case probably entail a weekly conference call with Jackson. It does mean Jackson is willing to attach his name to the film, so he must think it either has potential or they threw a lot of money at him.

The cast?

[Anonymous Coward]

Master Chief: CGI/Costume with the original guy's voice

Sergeant Johnson: Samuel L. Jackson
      Marine: Which one is your MA5B Assault Rifle?
      Sarge: It's the one that says BAD MOTHERF*CKER.

Cortana: CGI?

Re:The cast?

[XenoRyet]

Clearly Sergeant Johnson should be played by Al Matthews, aka Sgt. Apone

Re:The cast?

[Spock the Baptist]

"Just talkin' bout givin' the Covenant the Shaft!"

Re:The cast?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sergeant Johnson: Samuel L. Jackson
            Marine: Which one is your MA5B Assault Rifle?
            Sarge: It's the one that says BAD MOTHERF*CKER.


Sergeant Johnson: Does Captain Keyes look like a bitch !?
Grunt: Wh.. What?
Sergeant Johnson: (shoots Grunt in the arm) I SAID DOES CAPTAIN KEYES LOOK LIKE A BITCH TO YOU?

Wow

[ZachPruckowski]

Well, I think we can count on rocking special effects, but will the story stack up? I have faith in Peter Jackson, so I'm not worried about him wrecking the name of Halo.

But I see two problems:

1) Lots of people already know the story. Backwards and forwards.
2) They need to draw Halo fans and non-Halo fans. This was the same thing with LotR, where they had to draw Tolkein fans and laypeople (and did a good job).

I don't want to sound like a flamebaiter or a pessimist, but I just want to inject some concept of what I think problems might be before we get too excited.

Re:Wow

[ApostateApostle]

But I see two problems:

1) Lots of people already know the story. Backwards and forwards.
2) They need to draw Halo fans and non-Halo fans. This was the same thing with LotR, where they had to draw Tolkein fans and laypeople (and did a good job).

As with LotR, the core demographic of this movie knows the story. Backwards and forwards. How did this hurt ticket sales again? If anything a situation like this creates a built in fanbase who are first to go watcha and promote your film. Both LorR and Firefly/Serenty are good examples of this. As far as drawing in non-fans, just make it a good movie. People will talk.

Re:Wow

[east coast]

As far as drawing in non-fans, just make it a good movie. People will talk.

The problem with drawing non-fans to video game films is that it's attached to a video game. It doesn't mean the film is going to be bad but a good section of the population will dismiss a film based on it's source; "Oh, a film about a comic book/video game/cartoon. great...uh yeah... great..."

So this really is an uphill battle. Jackson was fortunate to get LotRs. It's doing well was almost a given considering it's true core audience is now in their 50s+. 20-somethings are pulled to this kind of writing and the Harry Potter thing certainly pulled in an even younger crowd.

Where LotRs was a classic Halo isn't going to have that kind of fan base and no one in the mainstream media is going to call Halo a "classic" reguardless of what the gaming community may think of it.

While I've never played Halo nor do I know the story line this is pretty much based on how I feel about the question of a Half-Life film. Half Life has been around longer and probably has a larger and more dedicated following, but I don't see a lot of the over 50s crowd going to see it. LotRs on the other hand seemed to be filled with these people. It was pretty much the most diverse movie going crowd I have seen in recent memory.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

No no no! He's only putting his name to this, hence "executive producer". He'll have very little involvement in the movie itself. To see this in an extreme, go over to imdb and see Spielberg's list. Sod it, here's the direct link.

Re:Wow

[AnonymousKev]

> ...he follows that up with King Kong...

Maybe I'm warped from seeing the 1976 remake in the theaters, but when I heard Peter Jackson was re-remaking King Kong, a great wave of weariness rolled over me. Why? Why would anyone feel the need to re-remake King Kong? And, once re-remade, why would anyone bother going to see it?

Maybe I'm just upset because he didn't jump right on the The Hobbit and The Scouring of the Shire movies --but I don't think so.

Re:Wow

[bynary]

Ummm...yeah...except that the LOTR trilogy has sold more copies than any other book in history except for the Bible. The Halo series has sold a lot but definitely not that much. In other words, the core demographic for LOTR probably numbers in the hundreds of millions whereas the core demographic for Halo numbers in the several millions (and mostly in the US).

Re:Wow

[ZachPruckowski]

I didn't mean that people knowing the story would hurt sales, it'd just cause "canon" criticism. LotR and Harry Potter fans go/went nuts whenever there were changes in the movies. Some Potter fans (my sister) complained about differences in lines versus the book dialogue. I doubt there'd be that level of complaint, but having the story already in the public creates a strong incentive to keep as close to the story as possible, which may or may not be good for a film.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea of "superhuman hero goes off and kicks alien butt in a SciFi setting" is enough for a video game, but not for a movie. No, I'm not demeaning Halo, I'm just saying it would have to be less SFX battles and more dialogue to draw the general, non-video-game public, given how SFX films (Stealth, the Island) fared this summer.

Not to mention the general public might be turned off by a videogame-based film. It wouldn't connect with anyone over 35 (yes, that was a stereotype), and parents wouldn't send their kids to a movie based a game too violent for them to play. That limits it to people 15-35 (which is a coveted demographic), but I can't see too many girls going (yes there are exceptions) unless Master Chief's uniform goes from full-body-armor to speedo (and only if he's played by someone buff). So we're left with 15-35 year old males as the primary draw.


Obviously, parts of the above (Master Chief in speedo) were in jest.

A lot of work to do...

[BigZaphod]

Looks like they have a lot of work to do yet to get ready...

Re:A lot of work to do...

[Anonymous Coward]

Try this instead.

And WETA do own that URL, but haven't bothered to do any forwarding yet.

Re:A lot of work to do...

[BigZaphod]

Heh. Wow. They fixed it. The link works now! /me wonders if perhaps my comment had something to do with it. /me ponders.
Naaah..

Wow

[evil agent]

It's one after the other. As if LOTR wasn't huge enough, he follows that up with King Kong, and now Halo. Expectations are enormous for all of them, and no doubt he came through with LOTR. I expect no less with the next two. Especially with King Kong. Jack Black + Naomi Watts + Andy Serkis = Box Office Gold.

Producer... but director...?

[JediLow]

So... we know that PJ and Weta will be doing Halo - but who's directing it (which I think would be far more important than who the producer and special effects team is...)

Typical Microsoft Film . . .

[EraserMouseMan]

Will they be using open standards? I want to be able to play this thing on my own custom hardware.
Are they going to provide the raw editable video source for free download? Heck, if I don't like something in the storyline I want to be able to edit it and recomplie my own version. Or if there's a glitch in the playback I can debug it myself.
It's a movie about Microsoft software!!! I'm going to boycott this evil movie.

What I want to know

[overshoot]

is whether MS insisted on Jackson replacing his Linux-based renderfarm with one running the new supercomputing version of MSWindows.

Re:What I want to know

[Anonymous Coward]

uhh why would they and why are you modded as insightful??(think carefully before you answer, most CGI farms are custom built solutions and Microsoft has very little to do in that area.. see Pixar etc)
Lord of the Rings was most likely done on RedHat or Fedora btw: http://www.massivesoftware.com/requirements.html

Besides, don't you think Microsoft would have already gotten it leaked to the press and spun it to say how much more superior their software was?
This is just typical /. Microsoft hate-mongering.. is that tin-foil hat nice and tight or do you have anything to support such a rumor?

Hmm sounds like the same kind of crap /. was spewing around the time it was announced Microsoft was buying Bungie about how this meant that no version of Halo would EVER appear on the Mac after that...
Guess we know how that all turned out..

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 06IQTH/103-7401908-0239846?v=glance

Re:What I want to know

[Anonymous Coward]

It was done starting with rh7.3 and then later on rh9. The next films will be done on suse or centos depending on what we decide for the next build we make here (I work for Weta Digital). Debian would be nicer but it's hard getting big corporations to offer support for it.

Re:What I want to know

[Anonymous Coward]

Not even on the table. Weta Digital and Microsoft went through this very thing years ago on the first Rings film. For all of the technical reasons I'm sure /. readers will know, M$ was rejected.

Re:What I want to know

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Next question.

What about HALO 2 for the PC?

[SpecialAgentXXX]

Is Microsoft delaying HALO 2 for the PC until it can put out this movie or is it just not planned? And will story, characters, and items in HALO 2 be in this movie? I've been waiting for quite a while to play HALO 2.

Re:What about HALO 2 for the PC?

[C0rinthian]

I think they're delaying Halo 2 on PC until it stops selling well on Xbox.

Re:What about HALO 2 for the PC?

[BumpyCarrot]

I think you're on a hiding to nothing. I'm under the impression that Halo 1 was only released for anything other than the XB because Bungie is an old Mac studio when Halo was under development.

Re:What about HALO 2 for the PC?

[Osty]

Is Microsoft delaying HALO 2 for the PC until it can put out this movie or is it just not planned? ... I've been waiting for quite a while to play HALO 2.

Halo only made it to the PC because it had a legacy (first Mac, then PC, then Xbox) of promises and Bungie felt they should follow through on at least one of them (sorry, no Mac version). Halo 2 from the very start was designed as Xbox-exclusive. Neither Microsoft nor Bungie have ever even hinted at a PC release, and in fact have denied it on several occasions. But if you want to keep holding out hope for a PC release that's never been promised and has actively been denied, I can't stop you. You could at least wait in line for Star Wars 7 at the same time and kill two birds with one stone. In the meantime, you could just pick it up for Xbox ...

Re:What about HALO 2 for the PC?

[Jester998]

In the meantime, you could just pick it up for Xbox ...

Except if you're like me and hate consoles...

Re:What about HALO 2 for the PC?

[Chrontius]

Halo for Mac?

I've seen it in the Apple store at Millenia.

obscure footer

[Anonymous Coward]

At the foot of the mountain, thunder: The image of Providing Nourishment. Thus the superior man is careful of his words And temperate in eating and drinking

synchronicity implicit in the secrets of the golden flower root on the web

Halo Movie? Heads up, Snipers out there...

[turtleAJ]

Hmm... the time for a Halo movie would be???.... Before Halo3 ?

Ok, nobody really cares for the Halo2 Campaign... Why? Because playing Halo2 online in xLive completely overshadows any and all efforts by Bungie and MS to make a cool "storyline" for the game.

Nobody really plays the Halo2 campaign... you play online... Why? Becuase anything else and you're wasting your time. Trash talking... Human oponents... Intelligent AND stupid human team mates... Exploring the ping intricacies of the xLive network...


I'm not really sure if I remember correctly how the Halo2 storyline goes... let alone the Halo one... How the heck are they going to cram that into a cool 2 hour movie? By producing a shitty 3hour one.

BUNGIE! MICROSOFT! (hey! I didn't use the $ ;)

Produce a trillogy... or two movies... with trailers in between downloadable to the xBox through xLive... Make it in CGI... no humans... And PLEASE! Take cues from xLive... and listen to the boards @ Bungie.NET, those are your loyal customers.

You have a great opportunity on your hands, don't screw it up. Remember that your target movie is an R rated one... Halo2 is for M = Mature Audiences... Don't pitch it to the kids. You'll end up with a JarJar in your movie.

I'm hoping for the best.

-turtleAJ


BTW: Bungie, can you check the scope of my Sniper? I think it's off or something ;)

Why movies are going down the tubes...

[argent]

This is why the movie industry is going down the tubes. They're making a movie about a bloody video game, one that's basically a bug-shoot from start to end. If this is the kind of thing that gets the big bucks for movie rights, then the industry's loss of imagination has doomed them.

Re:Why movies are going down the tubes...

[RoboRay]

"Doomed" them, eh? No pun intended?

Re:Why movies are going down the tubes...

[RebelScum]

You obviously never played through the original game, or if you did, you skipped all the cutscenes. Or maybe it was all just above your head, and you just looked at it as a mindless shooter, which is fine. But Halo had one of the best, most thought-out sci-fi stories I've seen in a long time! It wasn't just about the shooting. That was the gameplay. But the story was very good, much more movie-worthy than most of the crap Hollywood puts out.

Re:Why movies are going down the tubes...

[clu76]

I strongly disagree. Halo was nothing more than a generic military operation set in a sci-fi setting. About as interesting as shooting your way through a plethora of purple hallways. imho.

Re:Why movies are going down the tubes...

[SparkyJ]

I would strongly disagree with you both on the point that the movie industry making a movie about a video game is a bad thing and more specifically about your feelings on Halo. Teams of writers have been making increasingly complex and intriguing story lines for video games, giving the newer games enough character to have interesting standalone storylines. One of the best examples of that is Halo from Bungie Studios, which has long been heralded for it's excellent storylines (giving much more attention to that than simply putting out another shoot-em-up. Just go to http://halo.bungie.org/ or http://www.bungie.net/ and check out the fan fiction and legions of conspiracy theororists involved with the plots of the Halo series.

Re:Why movies are going down the tubes...

[Anonymous Coward]

For a game, it had a pretty good story. For a film, it was OK; not mindless or pure cliche, not as deep as SW3:ROTS let alone, say, Ghost in the Shell. For a book, it was pretty poor; there's worse stuff out there but Phil Dick or Greg Egan makes it look like something you'd get in reading hour in school at age 9.

(refering to Halo 1 - haven't played H2 campaign)

Re:Why movies are going down the tubes...

[argent]

I would strongly disagree with you both on the point that the movie industry making a movie about a video game is a bad thing...

I dodn't say that. I said that getting someone like Peter Jackson to direct a videogame like Halo instead of coming up with top-of-the-line material to go with a top-of-the-line talent is nuts.

Teams of writers have been making increasingly complex and intriguing story lines for video games, giving the newer games enough character to have interesting standalone storylines.

The thing is, you're comparing it with such a low standard... it doesn't take "teams of writers" to produce an interesting standalone storyline. Go to any bookstore, pick up any book... go ahead... and read it. Even if it's a potboiler it's likely got at least as good an "interesting standalone storyline" as Halo. Or any other videogame. If you try and get "teams of writers" to do the same thing, it'll be a miracle if you get anything better than pap, and you'll never get a first-class story out of it.

If they want to get people's imaginations going, they should go back to where the authors of Halo got their ideas from... Larry Niven, Iain Banks, and the rest. Get the stories BEFORE they've been committee-edited into pap.

Re:Why movies are going down the tubes...

[xpeeblix]

Yep, exactly! I loved the game, but I have zero interest in sitting in a chair for 2 hours watching it play out.

A much better choice would be to see Ringworld translated to the big screen. The coolest thing about Halo is the ringworld, so let's take one with a plot and decent characters.

Re:Why movies are going down the tubes...

[ediron2]

...one that's basically a bug-shoot...

There are Bugs? In Halo ?... Really? All I've ever played is deathmatch mode, so this surprised me. Literally. Chalk it up as another thing I learned on slashdot.

That also 'splains the jokes cracked about Starship Troopers, and I agree that we're so VERY not due for another lame bugkillin' space opera in my lifetime. That includes Ender's Game, if crazy uncle Orson is listening in...

Playing a FPS in realtime is fun, but WTF gave anyone the impression that 2 hours of cutscenes would be a blockbuster? I mean, REALLY!?

At last weekend's Serenity opening, we saw the 'Doom' trailer. A roomful of browncoats chuckled, cheered the BFG, made snarky remarks about how the first-person POV used in half of the preview would get old DAMN FAST, and then quite literally hooted and groaned at the end because it only took a 2-minute preview to convince a significant TARGET MARKET of a Doom movie that THIS was a movie that should NEVER have been made!!!

Re:Why movies are going down the tubes...

[thelost]

i disagree. To be honest the chances are that it will end up some poor excuse for a starship troopers clone, but there's always the possibility that it could do something fantastic. I can see it now, a niven-esque ringworld hoving into view, with the more interesting ideas in halo used as plot elements there is always a chance this could be a worthy film.

Re:Why movies are going down the tubes...

[argent]

Halo had one of the best, most thought-out sci-fi stories I've seen in a long time!Interesting way of putting it. One of the best stories you've seen in a long while. I'd suggest reading instead of watching, because the best SF never seems to get made into TV or movies.

Try some Greg Egan, Iain Banks, Karl Schroeder, David Brin, ...

Re:Why movies are going down the tubes...

[argent]

That includes Ender's Game, if crazy uncle Orson is listening in...

God.

I wish Card had never turned the wonderfully ambiguous short story Ender's War into the teen-wonder fantasy fulfilment novel Ender's Game. No, not the bundled Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, the original short story that Ender's Game was based on.

Sigh.

Re:Why movies are going down the tubes...

[argent]

there's always the possibility that it could do something fantastic

They'd need to hire an actual writer to make that happen.

(Halo is NOT a Ringworld, it's more like Iain Banks' Orbitals)

Re:Why movies are going down the tubes...

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. I believe that movies have gone down the tubes because of us, the viewing audience.


Take Serenity. It's an awesome movie. Pulled $10m in the opening weekend. I've tried to get people at work to go watch it, and I'm always met with 'Well, who's in it?', and I can't give them a name that makes them want to see it. The sad part is that names DO sell and substance DOESN'T. Peter Jackson could make re-release the Super Mario Brothers movie with his SFX department, with Natalie Portman playing the girl, and it'd sell. It's not their fault. Not until Serenity, an awesome no-name movie, can at least break even, which it hasn't yet (but God willing will).

Re:Why movies are going down the tubes...

[mykejm]

The movie industry is going down the tubes? How do you figure? Perhaps "Going down the tubes" is some idiomatic expression I'm not yet familiar with that means: "Doing extremely well, to the tune of $500 billion of annual (US only) revenue." If you're interested in movies that aren't based on video games, the studios still manage to make a few of those every year.

I don't think the movie industry has anything to worry about.

Except of course pirates.

Arr.

Re:Why movies are going down the tubes...

[argent]

The movie industry is going down the tubes? How do you figure?

Don't ask me, ask the MPAA. They're the ones whinging about lower turnouts. I'm simply proposing the possibility that there might be some reason for them.

Bungie

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't they make the Marathon games a while back? Anyone remember?

Re:Bungie

[RebelScum]

Yes, they did.

Good Precendent

[Puhase]

Remember an article awhile back that described the difficulties Bungi was having in finding a studio to pick up the movie rights because of all the creative control they wanted? This is the direct result. Tried and true performance being signed on. If only all studios would take such care with their properties to demand that they have a say in its adaptation then we might not have the likes of Uwe Boll at all (Or the Super Mario movie *shudder*). I personally applaud Bungi for actually caring about their game and characters and pushing a studio to do the right thing, instead of the cheap action flop-o-rama on a somewhat shoestring budget. But of course, this is all just the optimist in my talking. And to the above person who quoted the definition of the "producer"; do you really think Peter Jackson is going to involve himself with a movie and take the hands off approach? His track record to this date would say no.

Re:Good Precendent

[Anonymous Coward]

It's BUNGIE, BUNGIE, goddamnit!

Some people these days.

Re:Good Precendent

[Anonymous Coward]

For those who don't know, Uwe Boll and Christian Slater working on 'Alone in the Dark'.

Re:Good Precendent

[Anonymous Coward]

BUNGIE. B U N G I E. Not Bungi, Bungie. There's an E at the end of it

And not Bungle or Bingle either.

I wonder what it costs to buy off Peter Jackson?

[NextGaurd]

You'd think it would take a lot after LOTR and King Kong.

reality check

[circletimessquare]

studio exec: "hey jackson, can we use weta to make a movie out of a video game?"

jackson: "yeah, sure, why not, there's some free time on the servers between king kong wrapping up and us putting 'the hobbit' into preproduction"

studio exec: "ok thanks"

newslines scream: peter jackson, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER OF HALO THE MOVIE

but the above exchange is about the sum total of his involvement in the movie folks, sorry

the title "executive producer" is like getting the key to the city from the mayor: that key opens about as many real doors as the executive producer is involved in any real movie making work

Re:reality check

[solesoul]

Thats good but this is how it REALLY happened :

Bill Gates: hmmmm..., Halo is the main reason the Xbox made it. Should I do another one?

Yes Men: YES!

BG: Ok, hmmmm.... who can I get to do absolutely nothing with the movie except give us his name, show up on the set maybe twice, and give some interviews?? I've got it!!!

Newspaper Headline: OMFG!! Peter Jackson is the Exec. Producer for the Halo movie!!!

Re:reality check

[Rakarra]

It depends on producer, it depends on the studio, it depends on the director.

For example, do you think John Lasseter had little involvement on all the Pixar movies he was "executive producer" for?

One

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

They will just use one person, Gary Coleman, for those annoying little guys, but they will digitally put him in hundreds of times. Also: they will all look exactly like Gary Coleman and will frequently say, "Whatchu talkin' 'bout Master Cheif?"

Re: Hell Froze Over

[OctoberSky]

Actually, accoding the the Inquirer and Amazon.com its actually going to come out in December. I suck at HTML Link

Thats the game, not the movie. Surprised Slashdot didn't link this, but its understandable since it's vaporware.

Story

[Rickler]

Does HALO even have a story?

Re:Story

[RebelScum]

Yes. A very excellent one, at that.

And who's the director?

[Winterblink]

No director has been named, and the best executive producer in the world won't save a movie if Uwe Boll is helming it. So all this does is reassure us that at the very least, it will be a great looking pile of crap. :)

It hasn't even been 10 years...

[Lester67]

...do we need a remake of Starship Troopers already?

Re:It hasn't even been 10 years...

[solesoul]

I didn't really care for the first one, and I hated the sequel. Are you talking about the sequel, or an actual remake

Re:It hasn't even been 10 years...

[Surt]

Worse, that's assuming you ignore ST2:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367093/

Re:It hasn't even been 10 years...

[SamSim]

So wait, Starship Troopers was based on a book of the same name by Robert Heinlein. The game Halo draws heavily from Starship Troopers. And if the film studios have any sense they'll be taking their storyline from the Halo books as well as the game... making this the film of the book of the game of the film of the book?

Re:It hasn't even been 10 years...

[Joe the Lesser]

Would you like to know more?

Re:It hasn't even been 10 years...

[eh2o]

Wow, sentence really took some effort to parse.

And Peter Jackson wouldn't want to ruin his name..

[Phoenixhunter]

Given the whole Reanimator stage of his career is behind him....right?

Great Gmes = Great Movies!

[Mulletproof]

I don't care what you say, this'll be a great game to movie adaptation! ...Especially when the protaganist in question wears a mirror visored helemet at all time.

...Aw, what am I saying? We're screwed.

you KNOW Grand Theft Auto is coming soon!

[first_tracks]

you KNOW Grand Theft Auto is coming soon! The question is... who directs it? and who is the lead actor? Interestingly there was already a movie made in 1977 by the same name. Ron Howard's directorial debut.

Yes, but...

[slapout]

...will it be as good as the book? :-)

Re:Yes, but...

[Osty]

Which one? I've read a couple. They're not bad. Not high literature, but fun pulp fiction. If you've ever read any D&D, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc book, these fall into the same category. Worth a quick loan from the library if you're a fan of Halo, at the very least (gives you a good amount of backstory to the Halo world that you just don't get from the games).

What's going on here?!

[Anita Coney]

Sam Raimi directed the near perfect Spiderman movies. Christopher Nolan directed the fabulous Batman Begins. Kevin Spacey staring in Superman Returns. And now Peter Jackson is doing Halo! What the fuck is going on? Why is it suddenly COOL to make great superhero movies?! Are that many middle-aged men living in their parents' basements to support such an art form?!

Re:What's going on here?!

[Cruciform]

Nostalgia is a powerful motivation for creativity.

The people that are in the positions to make the movies they always wanted to make were into comics at the end of the Silver Age, and the bankrollers know that the next generation of people bought even more comics than them.

It may get harder for studios to pull that off over time as interests become increasingly diverse thanks to being able to join any little community of people on the net.

Re:What's going on here?!

[Anita Coney]

You nailed that one. Thanks!

Re:What's going on here?!

[Cruciform]

And I even left out the bit on technology :)

Comic movies have been made for ages but the tech was never able to compete with the expectations of the fans, no matter how much money there was.

Now you can just render a skin tight body suit and it looks good. That's one major hurdle to suspension of disbelief there.

The viewers were already out there, there just wasn't anything worth watching until CGI reached the right level of cost and quality.

Re:What's going on here?!

[GaryPatterson]

"near-perfect Spiderman movies" ?

I saw the first one and found it to be a pile of crap, in a bucket of cold vomit.

The acting by Toby Maguire was some of the worst acting I've ever seen. Flat, emotionless, dull. He had a strong competitor in the female lead though.

The CG was obvious in more than a few places - the way the character moved wasn't realistic, even counting for the superhero powers.

Next you'll be wondering out loud why Tomb Raider 2 didn't get a slew of Oscars.

On the other hand, Batman Begins was a good movie, well executed. What's-her-name was lame and uninspired but the rest of the film was very good indeed.

Re:What's going on here?!

[Anita Coney]

Maybe I'm just a Raimi whore, but I loved it. I personally thought that Kirsten Dunst was wrong for the role of a teenager as she looks about 28. And in Spiderman II she looked about 32. And couldn't they have found a real redhead for the role?

Re:What's going on here?!

[flynns]

Did someone's mommy take away their Superman comics when they were bad, hmmmmn?

No, seriously. The idea of a superhero isn't just limited to the pages of 25 cent comics books ripped off time and time again to make, "Superboy! AND HIS DOG!! Furiously battle BAT-BOY!!" out of dead trees for people who have nothing better to do.

Occasionally, heroes of any sort are inspiring - even if they are totally fictional. Some of us get a rise out of Good winning, or the fantasy (even if it only lasts for ~2-3 hours) that there's a near-supernatural force in the world working against evil and keeping us safe.

Just a thought.

Come on, noone cares about Peter Jackson

[FluffyWithTeeth]

I will fail to be interested by the Halo movie until they announce Samuel L. Jackson as the Sergeant

Come on, if he'll do Snakes On A Plane, he'll do this...

Re:Come on, noone cares about Peter Jackson

[doc6502]

File this story under "w" for "Whoopie Ding-Dong". Who cares? Do you really think that making a big-budget version of Halo is going to actually get those who play Halo out from behind their controlers and into the theatres?

Re:And Peter Jackson wouldn't want to ruin his nam

[Mr Guy]

Yeah, and Spielberg "produced" over 100 movies in under thiry years by caring deeply about the artistic integrity of each one.

I wouldn't quite call it selling out yet, but it's how the Hollywood game is played.

Too bad it's hype

[sam_handelman]

As other insightful posters have already commented, this is, unfortunately, complete hype and an appointment with no substance to it, except POSSIBLY that he might influence decisions re: who is hired to do the actual work (see below).

  This is unfortunate, because before he made good movies, Peter Jackson made awful movies which were FUN TO WATCH. The B movie tradition is strong even in his recent blockbusters.

  Now, obviously, the Halo movie is going to be completely dreadful. If you were expecting maybe a good movie, I want some of your drugs.

  The question is - will it be a guilty pleasure (as Jackson could make it,) or an unendurably tedious, pompous grind full of exposition and people staring at computer screens? Probably the later, but we can hope that Jackson might at the very least recruit other talented hacks and make an enjoyable popcorn movie out of this otherwise disaster.

How about Half-Life, the movie?

[Se7enLC]

At least half-life had a decent plot, albeit a thin one.

Re:How about Half-Life, the movie?

[east coast]

At least half-life had a decent plot, albeit a thin one.

Compare HLs story line to the story line of most any action film in the last 5 years and I think you'll find that HLs story line kicks the shit out of most modern action films.

And the story isn't over yet...

Re:How about Half-Life, the movie?

[Prophet of Nixon]

The first HL had the same plot as Doom, except less cool. Man makes laboratory. Laboratory experiments with teleportation. Monsters from another dimension come through teleporters. Hero fights monsters throughout the laboratory, then in the other dimension. To me, Doom wins simply because at the end of Act 2, the marine rappels from the teleported hunk of Deimos to the surface of Hell (that would have been an awesome cutscene in Doom 3, but unfortunately they didn't go anywhere near that stuff). Half-Life had numerous gameplay advancements, but the same plot.

If you want a more interesting plot in a game from the same era as Half-Life, go play the far superior Sin.

So this will his next

[Nik Picker]

Ring Cycle ....

Halo .. ring ... geddit......

awwww I crack me self up .....

Sigh

What? NO!

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Peter Jackson is directing? But that would result in a good movie based on a video game!

Doesn't he realize that's one of the signs of the apocolypse?

Maybe I'm overreacting. It's possible that even Jackson's emmense skill can't overcome the abomination that is the video-game-to-movie genra.

Re:What? NO!

[TrappedByMyself]

Peter Jackson is directing? But that would result in a good movie...

I suggest you go back and look at some of his earlier works.
He's had his share of really good and really bad.

Re:What? NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you miss the big fucking title where it says "Peter Jackson to Executive Produce Halo Movie"?

RTS as a movie?

[so1omon]

Wasn't the original showing of Halo shown as a Myth style RTS? I don't see how that could have been "obvious" that it would one day be made into a movie. Hell, there's no way anyone could have predicted the Halo phenomenon at that point. It was just a little Mac game. I guess it was a big Mac game, with the legacy that Bungie had going for them, but it was still a Mac game.

Re:RTS as a movie?

[totoanihilation]

Actually the first time Halo was presented (at MacWorld Expo) it was as a 3rd person game. The graphics and physics were amazing (quite close to the actual shipping game) considering it was running on a 4xx MHz G4 with a lowly Radeon (the first generation, IIRC).
People at the time were predicting great success for the game, since it was the first non-linear videogame that didn't require loading between every level, and where you could actually jump into a car and drive it.

Then the delays came. The buyout happened. The specs increased. The change from 3rd person to 1st person took place. And by the time the game actually shipped, it wasn't anything more than another First Person Shooter.

Re:RTS as a movie?

[Anonymous Coward]

And the change from 3rd person to 1st person made it worse how? By your logic it would have simply been 'another third person shooter', after all.

Re:RTS as a movie?

[totoanihilation]

And the change from 3rd person to 1st person made it worse how? By your logic it would have simply been 'another third person shooter', after all.

No, it would've been "A third person shooter". Name me another 3rd person out there that doesn't suffer terribly from clipping and awkward camera angles...
Personally, I much prefer the 3rd person view. It gives a much more natural view of the environment (i.e. position of the body, and peripheral vision). Give Oni a try, and you'll see what I mean...

Re:RTS as a movie?

[Prophet of Nixon]

The player models (especially the aliens/covenant elites?) looked absolutely terrible in the old Expo videos. And how was the original 3rd person version supposed to be non-linear and not require any loading? I don't remember any of those claims. Incidentally, the first game I remember where you could jump in a car and drive it in big indoor/outdoor levels was Terminator: Future Shock, an old DOS game from Bethesda. The sequel/expansion, Skynet, also had flyable hunter killers, even in multiplayer. Halo, to me, is the mutant offspring of Marathon and Future Shock.

I've got a good subtitle...

[zpeterz63]

Halo: Lord of the Really Big Ring

Executive Producer doesn't matter; Director does.

[Anonymous Coward]

Movie                 Star Wars I-III    Indiana Jones I-III   LOTR I-III
Executive Producer    George Lucas       George Lucas          Studio Suits
Director              George Lucas       Steven Spielberg      Peter Jackson

The Director is far more important than the Executive Producer.  Anybody with money can executive produce; just drop $20 million for the credit.  The Director is actually responsible for what goes on the screen, whereas the Executive Producer is only responsible for getting everything funded.  Peter Jackson as Executive Producer for Halo does not impess me at all.  I mean, George Lucas was Executive Producer for the classic Indiana Jones movies.  He was also Executive Producer for the "classic" Star Wars Episodes I through III movies.  The difference?  Steven Spielberg directed Indian Jones and George Lucas directed Star Wars.

One simple request

[novakane007]

Please for the love of god, don't have the chief take his helmet off. You could save a lot of money by not showing his face. This is IMHO a large part of his character. His voice can be powerful and not show his face. Much the same they did with Darth Vader.

Re:One simple request

[brkello]

Except they showed his face. Before...and after. Personally, I preferred after.

Re:One simple request

[Anonymous Coward]

So...more correctly Boba Fett BEFORE any prequels or extra DVD changes.

Re:One simple request

[Xyrus]

Judge Dredd.

*ducks*

~X~

It depends where it takes its plotline from...

[Phil Urich]

If it takes it from Halo 1 exclusively, then it might be 3 hours; 1.5 hours of the normal movie, and then 1.5 hours retracing the same steps backwards, and if it takes things up to the "end" of Halo 2, then whatever the length, it'll end about at least a half hour before it gets around to wrapping anything up.

But to be serious (as serious as one should be with, yaknow, entertainment), it probably won't follow the games too rabidly. And this will probably be a good thing. See, for example, the Resident Evil movie, at least the first one; it inhabits the same world as the games, but shows a different part of it, one more suitable for movies. And, at least in my opinion, it really succeeds as a movie in its own right. Hopefully (and I was doubtful before, because Resident Evil was quite the fluke as far as video-game movies go, which was unfortunately proven by the sequel) with such a team behind the making of the movie, it can do the right thing and make a good movie based on the premise and world of Halo, instead of just the problematic retreading of the game(s) that most video-game movies end up as.

Re:It depends where it takes its plotline from...

[ChuyMatt]

Personally, I just hope they include the interesting bits of story from the Marathon trilogy. That would be great. Or at least some sort of reference to it, man!

Peter Jackson WILL be involved

[hognutz]

From the official press release: "Jackson and Walsh will provide creative counsel on all aspects of the film via their WingNut Films banner, and Jackson's award-winning companies Weta Digital Ltd. and Weta Workshop Ltd. will provide creatures, miniatures and visual effects for the production."

I don't think he'll just be writing checks.

Re:I wonder what it costs to buy off Peter Jackson

[east coast]

You'd think it would take a lot after LOTR and King Kong.

This is a case of Jackson buying someone else off. Jackson will put his own money down in the hopes that this film will do well. the real question with this announcement is if Jackson is putting his cash down on the right horse of if he's been drinking too many mint julips in the hot summer sun and is just taking a wild guess.

And let's face facts here, just because Jackson thinks this film will profit doesn't mean he thinks it will be a good film. I'm sure there are a number of films in Hollywood's queue that I would invest in but I would never want to see the actual movie.

Why Make A Movie?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I don't understand this obsession with turning anything sucessful into a movie. Books, TV Shows, Games. Halo was a perfectly good game and was good because it was a game. It was entertaining as a game? Why make a movie? Isn't this just simply Hollywood scrambling to milk a cash cow?

It's worth noting that every project like this runs the risk of becoming another Super Mario Brothers fiasco.

Re:Why Make A Movie?

[solesoul]

Isn't this just simply Hollywood scrambling to milk a cash cow?

Yes. D'uh.

It's worth noting that every project like this runs the risk of becoming another Super Mario Brothers fiasco.

Don't forget Mortal Kombat. Or Street Fighter. Or Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Or Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. You know, I could keep going, but its depressing.

Re:Why Make A Movie?

[tbannist]

Welcome to the world.

In case you hadn't noticed, everybody wants more money.

Re:Halo Movie? Heads up, Snipers out there...

[F_Scentura]

"Ok, nobody really cares for the Halo2 Campaign. ...
Nobody really plays the Halo2 campaign."

Some people *do* enjoy single player, and the moronic teenagers on Live aren't always a huge draw.

Every Halo addict I know played through the entire campaigns of I and II, and found some substance, though the gameplay is obviously the main draw.

Bad Taste 2

[Anonymous Coward]

I just hope this doesn't get in the way for a sequel to
Bad Taste (or possibly a prequel to Meet the Feebles).

I'm still waiting for Tetris: The Movie

[SamSim]

Starring Al Pacino as "L"

Re:I'm still waiting for Tetris: The Movie

[Anonymous Coward]

Starring Al Pacino as "L"

Yao Ming as the red "I"
Steve Buschemi as the "S" .:'
Danny Devito as the loudmouth 2x2 square
and Pamela Anderson as the backwards "L"

Doomed? We'll see.

[Captain Scurvy]

This is why the movie industry is going down the tubes. They're making a movie about a bloody video game, one that's basically a bug-shoot from start to end. If this is the kind of thing that gets the big bucks for movie rights, then the industry's loss of imagination has doomed them.

We'll see how doomed they are when the game's fans all over the country pay money to see it. It's not just that the industry is uncreative. There's a definite market for garbage.

Bungie already stated...

[Evil Dr. EvilPickles]

Bungie announced the Halo movie almsost a month ago! What makes you cover a story on it NOW?

And no, bungie told us who the producer was, and made sure everything was in check themselves on their website.

I think we're confused about what "good" means.

[Errandboy of Doom]

Wrong, there have been PLENTY of good movies made from video games:

* Super Mario Brothers
* Wing Commander
* Mortal Kombat
* Street Fighter
* Double Dragon

I think we're confused over the meaning of the word "good." I mean, I had a lot of fun watching Alone In The Dark... but I don't expect it to make the AFI Top 100, nor would I recommend it to anyone I know or care about. After seeing the trailer, I'm not holding my breath for Doom, either. What's upsetting is that videogames are such a rich source of story, and the film industry repackages them as if they're only suitable for illiterate morons.

Here's a list of films based on video games. My only question: when will we get a Monkey Island movie?

Re:I think we're confused about what "good" means.

[Babbster]

As an eagle-eyed moderator correctly noticed, that list seemed intended to be ironic. I would note, though, to both yourself and the grandparent, that Mortal Kombat was actually not terrible. While it wasn't anything like high art (nor should it have been considering the source material), the plot worked and the fighting was pretty cool. That movie I actually WOULD recommend checking out, either via cable or a cheap rental. Christopher Lambert as Rayden - oh yeah! :)

Yet Another Video Game Movie That Will Suck

[loftwyr]

Movies based on video games suck. Having Peter Jackson executive produce or even direct the film may make it suck less, but it will still suck. I mean, how much plot can you have with yet another bug hunt movie. I think that concept has safely been done to death.

If they don't go that route, will we get a movie with a single character out of it and no plot references (like Tomb Raider) that will only mostly suck.

I've got a better idea. There's probably a Shakespeare or, better yet, other play that hasn't been made into a movie 10,000 times, why not that?

Or, and I know this is stretching it, how about a new script based on an idea that hasn't been done to death? They could even take it from one of the thousands of SF authors that have written amazing stuff that would kill to get a movie made...

Re:Yet Another Video Game Movie That Will Suck

[geekoid]

No plot is done to death.
A new take, new technology, good writing can make a good movie.

by good, I mean enjoyable.

Iain M Banks

[detect]

How cool would it be if the movie was more Iain M Banks/Culture than computer game tie-in?

Re:Doomed? We'll see.

[argent]

We'll see how doomed they are when the game's fans all over the country pay money to see it.

Yeh, but the gamers would pay just as much if it was Alan Smithee directing.

Can't Wait

[trongey]

I'm really looking forward to the scene where the girl dreams about the hero falling off a cliff, and being swept away in a river.
Which character will have the really huge eyes?

Don't You Mean....

[Doc Squidly]

...Duke Nuken Waiting Forever.

Of course

[Impeesa]

Sure, and a good one at that. According to Wikipedia, which I searched for the character names I remembered, it "tells the story of the Red Team and the Blue Team, ten soldiers belonging to two opposing armies, who occupy two small bases in a box canyon known as Blood Gulch. While both teams generally dislike the other and have standing orders to defeat the other team and capture their flag, neither team's soldiers are very motivated to fight each other. To varying degrees, most members of both teams are lazy, incompetent, or just plain deranged, and teammates often create more problems for each other than for their enemies. According to the story, each team built its base because the other team was building a base."

the alternative

[phriedom]

Hey, if they are going to make a mindless special effects extravaganza, I would MUCH rather they do it from video game source material instead of pissing all over one of my favorite books...again. With the exception of LOTR, all my favorite books have been screwed up. And for some reason they always take the best parts out: Johnny Mnemonic (where did Molly's claws go?), Starship Troopers (where is the exoskeletal armor? they took the mobile out of mobile infantry) Puppet Masters. Its too painfull to list more.

Be thankfull they are just using a stupid video game, that way you won't get your hopes up.

Ob. Penny Arcade

[pilkul]

Tetris: The New Shape of Fear

whoosh!

[cassidyc]

hear that?

Thats the joke going over your head.

CJC

If he bases it on my usual game of Halo

[bitflip]

It'll be a really boring movie, with the hero dying in the first ten minutes, reviving, dying, reviving, dying...with the climax being a controller thrown accompanied by a lot of cursing.

Maybe the music will be better.

Practice?

[KlomDark]

Isn't it a bit angrifying(tm) that we're going to get a Halo movie before we get a Ringworld movie, as Halo is nothing but a small-scale ripoff of Ringworld?

Maybe it's a practice run for the production studio. Rendering Ringworld requires numbers of an order of magnitude that even 64 bit computers choke on. We might have to wait for the 128-bit revolution before it can be accomplished.

How does that change you

[Man in Spandex]

What do you care what? they use to make the movie? You must be like the uber linux/oss zealot.

All I ask from Hollywood is movies worth paying for and lately, in general, they are failing. I don't give a shit what equipment or software they use whether its OSS or Microsoft products. I just want to get out from the movie theatre and say to myself "Now that was a good movie!". I haven't had one of those in a long time.

It'll Be Crap

[segedunum]

That is all.

Yes, that is a good movie..

[Anonymous Coward]

but it is also just a remake of 'Enter the Dragon."

"Some programmers and artists"

[kaffiene]

Who do you think Bungie ARE?

Re:"Some programmers and artists"

[kaffiene]

WTF???

I comment that Bungie are "programmers and artists" and I get labelled a troll?

What's with that??

Flop

[Jesus IS the Devil]

I'm guessing this will be a huge flop at the theaters. Come on, what kind of movie is there to make here? Just a bunch of guns and shooting? There's no story. I'm actually kinda surprised they decided to make a Halo movie this quick.

If anything a Warcraft movie would be much better. This is gonna end up like the Doom movie.

Damn! More weirdos incoming!

[MarkTina]

Now we're going to have all sorts of new weirdos landing in New Zealand, the LoTR bunch are strange enough, but now we're going to have fat nerdy game players coming here as well ?!?!

Sheesh! .. You know I'm joking right ? :-)

this is BS

[eobanb]

This is simply false; it wasn't like Bungie outsourced Halo to India or something, those 'programmers and artists' worked AT BUNGIE. They developed Halo in-house; it's totally different from what Microsoft did, which was buy Bungie and their near-complete game, add a Microsoft logo and sell it.

Re:this is BS

[Khuffie]

Yes, but unlike other companies (*coughEAcough*) that buy out smaller developers, rename them to something stupid like EA Austin or whatever, and completely eradicating the identity of the company, at least MS has allowed Bungie to go about maintaining its identity. They still maintain their own site, their own presence and their own voice. Kudos must be given to that, as it is so rare in buyouts.

I can't take these moral dilemmas!!!

[FurryFeet]

Is Peter Jackson good or evil now? Can someone please tell me if I still like him or not?

Kevin Bacon

[nzgeek]

I feel it is my solemn duty to inform you that my sister has had dinner with PJ, making you, the humble Slashdot comment reader, merely four degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon. To illustrate:

• You read my comment
• My sister had dinner with Peter Jackson
• PJ directed LotR, starring Sean Astin
• Sean Astin starred in White Water Summer with Kevin Bacon

Re:Kevin Bacon

[Dracolytch]

I got one better...

You live on Earth, with Kevin Bacon!

It's almost like you're best friends. :)

~D

you obviously never listened to I Love Bees...

[theStorminMormon]

In general I think you're right. Even the preview alone of "Doom" is enough to make me cringe. Video games have a history of utterly awful adaption to film, and the industry is definately lacking for fresh ideas recently. But think about it - that's because most video games (especially shooters) have only enough story to get you through a 2 minute cut scene and back into action. There's no substance to make a movie out of.

But there are some very compelling reasons to think that Halo might be an exception to this problem. You see Bungie put far more love and backstory into their game then the average shooter. In fact more than any shooter that I've ever seen before.

If you want an idea of the depth and breadth of artistic talent behind Halo, you should really consider listening to the I Love Bees story. It was part of a viral marketing game before Halo 2 came out. I love audio storytelling. Everything from unabdridged novels to radio adaptations of sci-fi, and the I Love Bees series is far and away one of the most compelling and involving storytelling experiences I have ever had. It tells a fantastic, exciting and complex tale of life on Earth as humanity begins to face the reality of their own iminent annhilation, weaving narratives from 5-6 different characters and from several timelines to a tightly focussed climax that had me up at 3am listening instead of sleeping before school.

There is a depth of realism (in the artistic sense of "characters that seem like real people in situations that, given the general premise, are realistic" obviously not in the "this could really happen" sense) to the Halo universe that could easily provide an utterly fantastic movie experience. The story - the material - is there.

The real question is just whether or not they manage to capture some of the real essence of the Halo universe. I Love Bees did that by going beyond the shoot-em-up mentality of the game and exploring human issues with an awesome and diverse cast of characters. Master Chief wasn't even a character in the series. Then again the books, I'm ashamed to say I read all 3, were nothing but a quick hack job. Just a way for Halo addicts to get one more hit.

They can do this right. I hope they do.

-stormin

Halo Movie? What a sad and sorry waste.

[Qbertino]

How about a true Ringoworld movie, not some lame rippoff.
That would actually be something really cool.
I trust Peter Jackson to do a really good Hard Science Fiction flick. But Halo as a movie sounds like some really one-dimensional hollywood action crap even Jackson can't resque.

Ringworld on the other hand does have some real movie potential.

Read the Title of the Page

[Anonymous Coward]

Peter Jackson is not directing. The article doesn't say that. The summary doesn't say that. The page title doesn't say that.

I know reading the article is often not done, but the summary is a good start in knowning what we're talking about. If you're too pressed for time though, the page title gives some indication.

He is producing, which is about raising money and profile. He is not directing

Jumping straight into the discussion without even knowing what the topic is probably isn't going to lead to good points being made.

Warcraft, Starcraft... even Grim Fandango

[GI Jones]

There's got to be better game material out there for a movie. I personally think that Warcraft or Starcraft could each make a fantastic special effects film... I always loved watching the cut-scenes in the game. Why HALO? While DOOM might end up being a turkey, there is good video game material out there. I would love for Tim Burton to make the LucasArts title Grim Fandango into a film... it would certainly be entertaining.

But Wait!

[MightyMartian]

Jackson has to butcher, mutilate, massacre and make palatable to simpering twits The Hobbit first!

But this is Hollywood we're talking about!

[Infonaut]

We're screwed.

Hey! Wait a minute! You say that as if Super Mario Brothers sucked, Tomb Raider blew chunks, and Wing Commander was an embarassment to humanity.

Based on Hollywood's Proven Record of Innovation (tm), I believe Halo and Doom will be excellent films, as will Splinter Cell. The top eschelons of the Hollywood movie machine are stocked by people of talent, creativity, and originality. Why shouldn't we have every faith in Hollywood to adopt content from the video game environment into the utterly different world of motion pictures?

well, I suppose it's appropriate...

[idlake]

I suppose it's appropriate that a movie based on a Microsoft video game reminds me why Microsoft's push for DRM doesn't concern me much: there have been almost no movies over the last decade or two that I really think are worth watching more than once (and most of them aren't even worth watching at all).

Not a bad idea...

[FhnuZoag]

A pong film would be AWESOME.

Seriously, maybe film makers should be looking away from the obvious candidates. The more film like games are film like because they are based on the cliches of films. Making a film of it, then, is likely to just strip away all the inventiveness and the flavour to result in an extravagant and pointless case of self-fertilisation. A copy of a copy of a parody. If film makers started looking at the non-obvious games, then maybe they can be forced to bring some imaginative interpretation to the enterprise, and create something new out of a brand.

Warthog?

[icj]

I wonder if there will be a proper warthog in this movie or a morris minor with a machine gun on top. :P

Ummmm...

[mattgoldey]

Has there ever been a good movie based on a video game? I can't think of one.

Movie Adaptations

[Killabits]

As a video gamer I find it disappointing to see some of my favorite games come to the big-screen. I cannot think of a movie derived from a game that I have enjoyed to this day. I think that many of these movies are so poorly done that they do not hold justice to the entirety of the game which they were based.

I felt that the Resident Evil movies were terribly done. I've played endless hours of the Resident Evil game series and the movie screenplay was totally unsatisfying. It was just scene after scene of watching actors shooting into air with a cut-scene of a 'zombie' being tugged by a line, thrown into barrels. On the contrary I felt that 28 Days later, although not based on resident evil series whatsoever, held so much more authentic value of what the emotions and chaos that you experience in the game series. Resident Evil the movie had so much hype, and I felt it was just overdone with cheap gimmicks of CGI and slap-on action which any director can shoot.

I heard a while back that Doom was going to be a movie, now I've read about Halo becoming a movie. These games are not among my favorites, but I have enjoyed them and it makes me sad that the potential for these movies to be good (in my opinion) is very slim. I watched an interview about Gabe Newell from Valve. He said there were many days that they sat down and constructed ideas and scripts for a Half-life 2 movie but at the end of the day they decided that it just wouldn't live up to the game.

Movies like Sin City and Batman Begins make me realize there are small periods in time when a high-quality adaptation is done. In the end I honestly don't think that a 2-hour non-interactive movie can live up to the hours of interaction in a video game. As a fan of video-games in general I do not want to watch a half-ass'd movie adaptation that doesn't do justice to a game. Of course no one forces me to watch these movies, but as a last hope, I think it's a crime to make a bad movie about a great game.

Oh, Boy!

[OrangeGlacier]

Will we see love interest added to the storyline? Maybe, Cortana gives up her immortal digital identity to marry Master Chief. (We are fans of the LOTR movies, but didn't like the liberties taken with the Tolkien story.)

Hmm bad jokes???

[LIQID]

First rings Now halos Lots of geeks Let the circle joking begin.. YAAAAAA

Re: Hell Froze Over

[Anonymous Coward]

the Inquirer and Amazon.com

Wow, those are two credible news sources right there.

</sarcasm>

ah hell!!!

[k31bang]

This movie is going to hell damned fast. We are going to see Halo done like Meet the Feebles. tsk tsk

Irony that MS 's Movie will be Rendered on Linux

[�nertia]

I find it great to think that Halo will be rendered on Linux, which Weta Digital use exclusively both for the renderfarm and for the workstations.

;-)

Land of opportunity!

[UK Boz]

Woooah Moving to NZ Next month, where do I sign up !! Boz (Soon to be NZ Boz)

Corrections

[Tom]

It wasn't Microsoft's game, it was Bungie's game - M$ acquired Bungie when Halo was mostly done.

And it wasn't a blockbuster. It was successful (mostly because it shipped with the xbox) but a blockbuster? Sorry, not where I live (Germany). After the initial hype, few people spoke about Halo again, and that's not what I call a blockbuster.

Re:Corrections

[DaveCBio]

Try again. Without Microsoft's cash infusion and support Halo may have never even been completed. Bungie wasn't do all that well and their last game before Halo (Oni) was a bit of a flop. And it doesn't matter that it was a launch title, because it sold well long after launch and that's still a blockbuster. Lastly, I don't know what planet you live on, but lots of people talk about Halo.

Look on the brightside.

[thelonestranger]

At least they didn't give it to Uwe "The Butcher" Boll.

A movie isn't the end.

[jonfields]

As long as its taken from the position as a cutscene, things will be fine. This cutscene will likely help to explain events that weren't fully explained before. Such as more detail into the Covenant. Its the same with FF7:AC. Its just a 1 1/2 hour extensions to the ending of the game.

Low Budget

[HarvardAce]

At least they can save a lot of money on the set. They only need one or two indoor scenes that they can use over and over!

All kidding aside, I did enjoy Halo's storyline, so I'm looking foward to what they will do in the movie.

another linky

[kiwibird]

I don't know if this is totally redundant now, but there's a little article on this on http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp? topic_id=349817 too. Since I don't have the time to play games nowadays, I'm hoping this movie might give me a hint what the big deal about Halo is heh.