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

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?

[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: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.