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Fox And Universal Say Goodbye To Halo Movie
Master_of_Tumbleweeds writes "20th Century and Universal Pictures, the two studios that agreed to co-finance the film adaptation of Microsoft's Halo video game, have abruptly pulled out of the project. This leaves executive producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh without financing or distribution. A ballooning budget (rumored to have been closing in on the $200 Mil mark) and apparent lack of confidence in rookie feature film director Neill Blomkamp are being named the major culprits for Fox and Universal's decision."
At .2 billion, I can't blame them.
Did I read that right? Did the movie studios just make a good decision?
I find laziness to be an excellent motivator.
Maybe this is in fact the first glimpse of sanity in the $$ bloated film world, We can hope
Seems like an odd choice considering Peter Jackson's track record with making money (LoTR, King Kong) and the popularity of Halo.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
I for one am glad. They would just ruin the game by making a lame movie about.
I played doom before halo. Doom rocked it was...wait....movie???? Doom the movie sucked!
Plus movies made after video games aren't exactly destined to become classics.
That film's going to be the most bloated Microsoft product yet!
Summation 2
"A ballooning budget (rumored to have been closing in on the $200 Mil mark) and apparent lack of confidence in rookie feature film director Neill Blomkamp are being named the major culprits for Fox and Universal's decision."
Surely it's "...major factors behind Fox and Universal's decision"?
Spending 200 million on an untried director with a video-game property. Yep, I'd pull out quicker than you could say "Uwe Boll."
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
This movie was DOOMed from the begining!
Trying to turn a game into a movie is destined to fail. Very few games are ever thought-out fully to the extent necessary for a complete story to be composed that will satisfy the masses. They're usually thought-out to the extent that a gamer in the mindset of "Whatever... what's next?" wants to comprehend.
When you turn a game into a movie, the person watching isn't just waiting to get to the next level/area/mission, they might actually be interested in what's going on.
We've already got lots of little Halo movies which, I suspect, are far better than anything Hollywood could do with it.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
just normal "business" in the movie industry...
The budget is pretty much petty cash for MS. And entering the entertainment business means they can influence the business even more, towards MS online distribution (less iTunes, more M(S)P3s Online), and compete even more with Sony to push them out of the console market, to help the XBox360.
No need to worry, everyone. This is Fox. I'm sure if enough of us buy the DVDs they'll realize their mistake and start making it again.
A lot of people would argue that turning a video game into a movie on the big screen isn't a good idea. I, however, feel as though the Halo storyline (at least from Halo #1) is adequate for a very impressive film.
I was looking forward to the release of the movie, and actually had intention to see it in the theaters. I guess that's a far-fetched idea, now.
Fox/Universal should've hired Uwe Boll to direct/write the movie. Then Halo would have, at least, been released. Although I'm not saying that the movie would've been any good because it's halo.
Actually, it would've been better if the guys from Red vs Blue worked on the movie. At least the movie would really be similar to the game.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
wow...
I always assumed that there were contracts and stuff that stoped them from just going "well, we changed our mind.... BYE!"
meh, some one else will pick it up. cmon it is a Jackson and Halo, 2 huge names, some one must be willing to bite.
note I am not a huge fan of Jackson, I only realy like the LotR movies, and I hate Halo, but still.
it is bound to make money.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
I would imagine the whole "partnering" with Microsoft thing to be a factor, too.
Why do you imagine that? Because Microsoft can't make, supply, or be shrewdly involved in entertainment-related material like Halo? Or because you don't like MS, and it feels good to say that? What's your actual thinking, and why is this +1 "informative" anyway?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
...won't somone think of the children?!
I want to be retired when I grow up.
Once they named Paris Hilton to play Cortana I knew the movie wouldn't make it.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Until I see a good video game based movie I would prefer they just leave Halo alone. The closest I have seen to a good video game movie was the original Mortal Combat and it wasnt exactly oscar material.
if the participants stopped living like kings.
Excessive affluence has cost us many great works.
I find an ever increasing reduncancy between a videogame with hi-res state-of-the-art graphics, and a movie of such a game. There's a diminishing narrow gap between seeing such a movie, and the demo mode of the actual game. Let's see Peter Jackson work on something else, please.
Where were you when the voynix came?
If anyone ever took the time to read the books as well as watch the cutscenes in both games, they are very well done and the backstory of Halo lends it to being very easily turned into a motion picture that won't suck.
Fox and Universal, coming off a long season of shitty movies run by shitty directors, suddenly decide that it would be a bad idea to make a sci-fi epic with a potentially large cult audience, with the backing of one of the modern era's most successful names in fantasy epics... because they think the director's a newbie. Boy, smart move, there.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Peter Jackson is making a Halo videogame movie-tie-in.
Was I the only one who was thoroughly impressed with Mr. Blomkamp's short film Alive in Joburg ? I thought it was a nice mix of sci-fi and realism and would love to see more movies blending that style.
Now, a budget of $200 million is a lot for any movie. Jackson's King Kong barely broke even, so he doesn't exactly have a perfect track record.
But, let's use some crazy gorilla math. Alive in Joburg is about 6 minutes long. Make it 90 or 120 minutes long, and you've got twenty times the budget. (Mind you, I'm using crazy gorilla math). I don't think that short film cost $10 million. Hell, I doubt it even cost $200,000. I think if they worked on a budget first (say, $75 million), and then worked backwards from there, they can still have a great product.
Just don't make the movie three hours long. Please.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Video game movies do not always do well.. but they don't, "always do poorly," as you've stated. Sure, Doom barely broke even after dvd/vhs rental (yet they're making a second [last I heard].. so that says something). But Tomb Raider grossed $131M in the US alone, with another $60M in rental market (plus foreign box office, merchandising, etc). With a production budget of $80M, that's a nifty return. I do agree with you though, the $141M budget that the article quotes is quite excessive for the genre. When examining whether it will be profitable you have to look at many things, and just being a video game movie isn't enough to doom you (no pun intended) to failure.
/., and do thoroughly enjoy reading most of your comments. This is the first time i've had the chance to reply to a "friend," since I mostly lurk (and generally only post in articles relating to digital cinema, or film stuff.. since that is what I do). Keep up the good comments ;)
If you look at the current trend, it seems that video game movies are getting pretty popular. Comic book movies have become insanely popular in the last 5-8 yrs and it seems to me virtually anything comic book related at all gets automatic greenlight nowadays (GHOST RIDER? I'd never even heard of this comic before I saw the trailer-- granted, i am not a comic fan, but certainly part of the draw of comic movies is a base association with a variety of users beyond just hardcore fans). Anyway, I digress, my point is simply, maybe executives are seeing some possibilities/trends in video game movies, --at least this is my conclusion based off the number that are slated for production currently..
the list below was shamelessly poached from a wikipedia list i found, and then edited to remove probably 10-15 video games i don't recognize [see last paragraph for my reasoning behind this]
* Castlevania (2007)
* Doom 2 (TBA)
* Driver (2006)
* Duke Nukem: The Movie (TBA)
* Far Cry (2008)
* Halo (2008)
* Max Payne (2007)
* MechWarrior (TBA)
* Metal Gear Solid (2008)
* Metroid (2006)
* Mortal Kombat: Devastation (2007)
* Pac-Man (2007)
* Perfect Dark (2008)
* Quake (TBA)
* Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
* Resident Evil 4 (2007)
* Return to Castle Wolfenstein (TBA)
* Splinter Cell (2006)
* Tekken (2007)
* Tomb Raider III (TBA)
* Untitled WarCraft Project (2008)
So, anyway, for the most part, I agree with you.. they have their work cut out for them, but I believe is the storyline does its own thing (And doesn't stick too much to the exact game), with Jackson behind it, it could do quite well.
Also, as an aside, I have you "friended" on
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Peter Jackson's track record as a director is firmly established. However, as the submission said, he's not the director here. Slide Peter into the director's chair, and yes the equation does change.
:) If it did come out bad, I'd rather it be axed now then damage his reputation later.
You have to understand, Hollywood's track record with movies based on game adaptations is not good. So when you say "I'm going to make a movie based on a game" you are already starting in a hole. To dig out of the hole, you have to get a great script, a strong proven director, and reasonably good cast.
Then real hard part begins. You have to make sure the movie itself provides enough material to entertain fans of the game, stick to the over all idea of the original story, and then include enough quality to stand on a movie on it's own to draw in nonfans to make money. This is the hard part because while games don't typically require the same capital investment as movies (big name stars, directors, creative crew require much larger sums of money than your top notch game programmers).
I'm not saying Neil is bad, but he's not got Peter's reputation. Writing a script that can do all this is hard, and the IMDB link says they've changed scriptwriters at least once. They haven't dug out of the hole, and Fox looks like it's not going to take the risk.
If Peter looked like he had the same level of involvment in this project like he did in LotR, then this would be a great movie. It doesn't look like he does, and well he can't be perfect in all of his releases
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
One of the basic rules for a happy cinema experience is never, ever, ever go and see a movie based on a computer game. There has never been one that wasn't a complete turkey. When Tomb Raider the movie came out (a fine example of a post content movie) you could smell the Brussels sprouts from two streets away. One less example of the genre can only possibly be a good thing. Plus it's a Microsoft project that looks like it won't see the light of day. Two major plus points in one news story.
Meanwhile, talks with Miramax still continue on the upcoming Office 2003 movie adaptation.
Ok, so I know he isn't published in the USA, but Halo was at least partly inspired (http://marathon.bungie.org/Story/halo_culture.htm l) by an Iain M Banks book, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Consider-Phlebas-Iain-Bank s/dp/1857231384). I think this means that comparison's with films like DOOM is kind of unfair.
Btw, Iain M Banks is one of the best sci fi authors alive. If you don't believe me, read it. An awesome book.
Steve Crawford
todo - The developer's equivalent of confession: "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned..."
Rats. I'd sort of figured that Halo stood a chance of being the "First computer game to movie adaptation that didn't completely stink". It's got a workable story and good characters, at least by sci-fi/action movie standards.
Oh well, life goes on. I suppose what I'd really like to see instead of a Halo movie would be a movie based on Marathon. It's got massive colony ships, heroic cyborgs, unknown hostile aliens, and an insane AI. What more do you want?
Most movies that are based on video games bomb. Look at Doom, Mario Brothers or Wing Commander. The only one that I sort of liked was Silent Hill.
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.- Douglas Adams
Looks like a cranky mod is getting "off topic" confused with "informative". The info certainly spurred me to find a more reliable source than The Guardian and I found this: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=68 947. Those damned Wikipedians have also been beavering away: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(film) ... and I still couldn't find this putative "pace marine" anywhere.
is a movie based on Free Cell. Think of the possibilities!!!
and create another horrible "masterpiece" that'll hit the $2 "please take it away from us" shelves.
King Kong did not "barely break even", it's the 36th highest grossing film of all time with nearly $400m of profit to its name. The only way it could have been classed as break even is if you looked at US gross only without DVD sales.
I've heard talk of book-adaptations, but that's just par for the course.
Meta will eat itself
Well, it's about time that somebody wakes up and realizes that the storyline of a video game is too thin to be attempting to base a feature length presentation on it. Perhaps the first Half-Life could be reasonable adapted, but that game was more about the story than the game in the first place.
I'd rather see Halo as an Anime series.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Considering Halo (and the whole XBox, really) was designed to appeal to people who had never played games before (as Penny Arcade put it once, the "drunken frat fuck"), and therefore thought things that had appeared in other games years before were suddenly "innovative", I don't think it would work out as a movie, since I think the market of "people who have never seen movies before" is rather limited.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Spielburg's name is attached, but who is directing the movie?
Michael Bay.
I am guessing that Larry Niven's lawyers finally contacted them...If you have read the Ringworld books by Niven, and the other Known Space books, then played the games, you will see there is enough similarities between Halo/Halo 2 that it would make investors twitchy.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
I don't understand how they could have done this.
Now the world will be deprived of another in a long line of well-acted, brilliantly-written, and plot-heavy movies based on video games. After Doom and Super Mario Brothers, I thought it was obvious that all the major advancements in cinema were being made in films that exist as a footnote to a video game franchise.
THe world is now deprived of the incredibly complex artistic vision that would have been a movie based on a first-person shooter. Just think of all the philosophical and political discussions this movie could have motivated if it had come to fruition.
I, for one, am saddened and disheartened by this stunning loss to western culture.
Let's use some crazy gorilla math. Alive in Joburg is about 6 minutes long. Make it 90 or 120 minutes long, and you've got twenty times the budget. (Mind you, I'm using crazy gorilla math). I don't think that short film cost $10 million. Hell, I doubt it even cost $200,000. I think if they worked on a budget first (say, $75 million), and then worked backwards from there, they can still have a great product.
Now, a budget of $200 million is a lot for any movie. Jackson's King Kong barely broke even, so he doesn't exactly have a perfect track record.
Was I the only one who was thoroughly impressed with Mr. Blomkamp's short film Alive in Joburg ? I thought it was a nice mix of sci-fi and realism and would love to see more movies blending that style.
Please don't make the movie three hours long. I wouldn't be able to take it all in, HEH!
Final Fantasy VII - Advent Children
...is TRON really supposed to be on that list?
:)
Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within
Final Fantasy X-2
Doom
Doom 3
Bloodrayne
BloodRayne 2
Resident Evil (Special Edition) / Resident Evil - Apocalypse
Resident Evil 4
Alone in the Dark
Full (?) list here...
Actually, the movie was stopped because MS wanted internet dist. rights and the rest of the group had already made a deal w/iTMS
I think a movie based on the Scarface video game would be a killer film (excuse the pun). They should show what leads up to the begining of the game and have Tony die in the final fight.
Atari's old ET game would also kick ass. Where's my funding?
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
"King Kong did not "barely break even", it's the 36th highest grossing film of all time with nearly $400m of profit to its name."
Are you sure of your numbers? King Kong's domestic take was $218 million, and typically only half of that ends up in the studio's hands -- theatres and distributors taking the rest. Additionally, King Kong's $208 million production budget doesn't include its marketing budget, which was probably in the area of $50 million. In other words, they were $150 million in the hole with the US gross. Foreign gross probably got them close to break-even, and DVD sales pushed them over.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
I cannot begin to imagine what a Pac-Man film would look like....
I have no sig yet I must scream.
This clearly is a joke, a funny one at that, why on earth is it modded interesting? Is it that slow of a day for you moderators?
God almighty. I'm glad they pulled the plug on that 40 mile an hour piece of crap! I hate the Halo series. It's unoriginal, it's bland, it total garbage. It gives me a good feeling to know how many idiots this is going to piss off.
Maybe that was the problem. Peter and Fran were probably going to try to stick their big-eyed kids into every other scene.
Microsoft isn't exactly known for turning a profit with it's gaming division.
Microsoft isn't exactly known for turning a profit with it's gaming division
I think you're confusing hardware with software. This movie is not hardware.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
They should call Microsoft. I know MS aren't in the movie business, but they have more than enough spare change to finance this film and get distribution for it.
Space Invaders-
Plot- Orderly flying aliens destroy New York City, floor by floor.
Stars- Jackie Chan, Shaquille O'Neal and love interest Paris Hilton.
Scene Take-
Shaq: Jackie, [mumble] aliens [mumble] have to [mumble] Wall Street.
(Jackie Chan begins climbing UN Building, swinging from flag to flag.)
Paris: I think the aliens are hot.
Breakout-
Plot- After construction fraud results in shoddy construction at a maximum security prison, a pair of wrongly convicted prisoners plot their escape on the handball court.
Stars- The Rock, Nicholas Cage, Dave Chapelle (who dies during the escape) and Bill Mahr as the bumbling warden.
Scene Take-
Chapelle: Are you two stupid? You don't think anyone's going to notice you knocking the damn back wall down? Forget this! I'm gonna go see if the warden needs any more weed.
The Rock: I don't want to do this, but the Warden's left me no other choice.
Nicholas Cage stares out window intently.
(Meanwhile in the Warden's office)
Mahr (on phone): New Rule! If the prisoners have multiple life terms, they must attend the buddhist prayer services, so they will come back here in their next life too!
Asteroids-
Plot: A giant asteroid is heading towards Earth and the only hope is a crack team of oil drillers.
Stars: Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and love interest Liv Tyler with Steve Buschemi as the lovable freak.
Scene- Oh wait, never mind....
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
I think you're the one dividing things. Parent was talking about the "GAMING DIVISION".
I think you're the one dividing things. Parent was talking about the "GAMING DIVISION".
Which is a red herring, which is why I called him on it. As has been talked to death, here, it's the hardware sales piece of that division that's always in the red. They do great on the titles. Hell, Flight Simulator alone is a cash cow.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
What red herring? The gaming division is the sum of all its parts. An argument that Microsoft itself is still running in the black would have made more sense (and cents).
Teens generally do not have disposable income. That's a fact. How many radio and TV stations do you see geared to teenagers? And how many to adults? Do the math. There's WAY more money to be made from a movie NOT geared to teenagers.
I've played Halo, and I would NOT pay $8.50 to see a movie about Halo, and I am 20 years past my teen years.
And here's their answer:
Obviously, Microsoft greed trumps Bungie integrity.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Video game movies are bad ideas. The game is made for interactive play with a story line usually tacked on out of obligation.
Bungie games are an exception. See here and here for proof. Halo is apparently even more well-integrated with it's fictional universe, with a "story bible" closely guarded. (Their earlier games had no such thing and were more ad-hoc, and yet STILL fleshed out rich and detailed fictional universes with interesting and complex characters and plotlines). If any game were to be good movie material, it'd be a Bungie game.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
What red herring? The gaming division is the sum of all its parts. An argument that Microsoft itself is still running in the black would have made more sense (and cents).
I think the point is that saying some movie makers are skittish about Halo because of MS is a nonsensical comment. Especially to the degree that their hardware pricing (and its impact on MS's profitability in the larger bottom line of their entertainment-related ledger-sheet) has anything to do with it - which is to say, not at all.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Hey... Can you blame them? The budget was getting bigger and bigger and let's face it, motion picture adaptations of video games have a tendency to suck. Resident Evil, Doom, Silent Hill, Mortal Kombat Annihilation (MK one was pretty cool for the teenage me). The track record is not too promising.
A better strategy would have been to cap the budget and focus on story. Get the audience intimatly involved with the characters and the plot in the first movie. Show them a little of Master Chief's heroics and set the stage for your 200 million dollar sequel. I don't think this is a new idea. X-Men, Spiderman, Matrix, Star Wars prequel. Develop characters until you have the money to dramatically kill them off. Brilliant!
One day the toilets of the world will rise up... And I'm going to nuke them.
FFS! IT's PETER JACKSON for cryin out loud! Let the man WORK!
Fate/Stay Night - one example of a game turned anime, succesfuly. Actualy, pretty much all these guy's games end up anime, and nobody complains. Quite the oposite.
Now he has time to make the Hobbit. I wonder if this was intentional or just lucky :)
It's the only thing anybody really wants to see you do, Pete. A Halo movie is a turd waiting to happen. Whoever is holding up the rights to The Hobbit needs to stop fuckin around.
+0 Meh
Did anybody remember that Bungie wrote the game & it's backstory? Anybody here remember the three games that came before Halo, and served as its inspiration? Hmmmm... And how about the fact that THOSE games have an amazing story which is still being analyzed & dissected. Oh, and the fact that people are still playing Marathon & it's ilk. So, my opinion is that if Bungie is involved in any fashion, they've probably got some strong story cooking.
folks dont seem to understand that halo has one of the best storylines ever written for a game. everyone keeps saying you dont have much luck turning a game into a movie - but that is not the case here. halo has a very well written story behind it. the only comment i can agree with is that the game has so much story and movie cut-scenes included in it, this movie might actually be redundant. however, i'm sure a movie will have a lot more to offer than just cut-scenes and i think this is a sure fire deal and they would be foolish to stop production. im surprised that more /. readers don't already know this - halo IS, of course, a geek thing almost as much as WoW or any other geek game. is it the microsoft affiliation that turned you all off?
"i stand on the edge of destruction" -shai hulud
Sometimes games can be movies in their own right. Either i became to old, or does anyone else remembers Wing Commander III and IV as well ?
Why doesn't Microsoft spend $200M promoting their games and everything else by making a Halo movie? It couldn't be any worse than the Doom movie. Which lost about 50% of its $70M budget in theaters, but is making plenty more in endless cable/TV syndication.
If MS went that route, and had the same "success", it could be spending a couple-few dozen million on marketing Halo to the much wider audience of moviegoers. Since Halo is still a more popular brand than was "Doom" when its movie was released, it could even show a profit in theaters+cable.
And of course the marketing value to MS could be enormous. For all its ubiquity, the MS product line is rarely featured, or even product-placed, in scenes in movies. MS could reinforce its brand across the board, across the world, even projecting it into people's imaginations of "the future", by making a movie.
Since so much of MS is just for show anyway, this seems a natural project, even long overdue.
--
make install -not war
Fox just bought the rights to cartoon series after the video game 'Destroy all Humans".
Fox exectives might just have something else on their minds. They are making alot of shows and movies. They got a Simpsons and Futurama movies coming up too.
\
For those who love the mad max experience, Waterworld was just another sequel per say......but I tend to think that being a Kostner vehicle not only does it help pay their bills, but for the adolescent minds of today being so fine tuned to the cyber world, this movie will definately make its money back....if Peter Jackson does as good a job as on his other movies Thanks for listening to my blah blah
Duke Nukem: The Movie... when its done!
While it was funny in Family guy,
Clip
Who's idea was it to make a feature length movie about Pac Man?
Actually, the people who "grew up" with Halo were in their late 20s and early 30s. Right now the average console owner is 35 years old. Teens who buy games are a small number compared to the grown adults who buy games. I'm not sure what the average comic buyer is at, but from what ive seen they seem to be the same age, and mostly the same market. Grown adults. I will agree that nostalgia did help the comic movies a bit, but if you're basing your sales on age alone, you're way way off.
If this is a Microsoft venture, I mean it came out on Xbox and was a big MS deal, why not have MS fund the picture? If they really want it to come out, wouldn't that be a good idea???
They should just do a feature-length Red vs. Blue... I'd pay $$$ to go see that! :)
Peter Jackson barely broke even on King Kong's $207 million budget and that was riding off the name of one of the greatest films ever created. Now, as popular as the Halo games are, I doubt they could draw in King Kong-calibur crowds. Lets say if all the two million (or so) people who bought the Halo game went out to see the Halo movie, it would only gross around $20 million assuming they paid $10 a ticket. In order to break even, they'd have to draw in a considerable amount of people who have never touched a controller in their life. Considering Gears of War costed Microsoft $10 million to fund, there is no way its a good idea to spend nearly 20 times as much as a top teir game for something that's really hit or miss.
You are also forgetting that they were going to base the movie off a shitty FPS with an overly done plot(OMG ALIENS vs Humans!).
Maybe that is the good reason they bailed.
I probably would have gone to see it too, but I expect it would have been a three-parter. The first would be groundbreaking in scale and experience. The second would have multiple versions showing the same story from different perspectives. And to see the third one, you'd be forced to upgrade to an IMAX theater.
It's just as well they killed it before I blew $50 on tickets, popcorn and a wireless controller.
getting the blue screen of death 45 minutes into the movie. Then all of the viewers would have to leave the theater and come back in.
I don't know what you've been drinking, but i'm sure Microsoft hopes their shareholders are drinking the same thing.
"Fiscal '07 will be a loss. We think that turns to profit in 08," Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, said at Microsoft's annual analyst meeting (July 2006)
In July, Microsoft reported $414 million loss on revenue of $1.14 billion. In April, they reported a $388 million loss.
Neil can go to hell.
Why would you copy a post above you word for word?
It's as if millions of nerds cried out all at once but were suddenly silenced.
Cause it will be produced by a South African.
Humorless bastards! I almost spit my teeth out laughing!
Sometimes games can be movies in their own right. Either i became to old, or does anyone else remembers Wing Commander III and IV as well ?
Wing Commander is an interesting case. The games weren't classic cinema, but they were reasonably good space opera, particularly considering the limitations of budget and technology; they were certainly the best thing Mark Hamill ever did after Star Wars.
And yet when the time came to transfer to the big screen, the resulting movie was awful even in the opinion of fans of the series.
I don't understand how they managed that -- they had an existing franchise that basically consisted of movies separated by repetitive space combat, and an existing legion of fans who loved the movies they were producing, and somehow they managed to put out a movie that was so different that the fans hated it.
That, above all, was what convinced me that video games are unlikely ever to make a successful transition to film.
In New Zealand it is being reported that the studios have pulled out because Jackson and Walsh were refusing to reduce their share of the profit, which is also why LoTR and King Kong changed studios early in production.
. html
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3834956a10,00
i am endorsed for the carrying of dangerous goods, please be giving me your depleted uranium
Jackson made The Frighteners, which was, IIRC, pretty successful at the box office, and proved that Peter Jackson knew how to make a movie that balanced characters, story, humor, thrills, and elaborate special effects in a highly entertaining fashion.
Even though he wasn't that well know to the public at the time, I don't think it was completely unexpected that he was given the money to make LoTR.
This same comment has been posted - see 10:38
it could be so good, but it could also be sooo so as bad as doom was
MilkMiruku
I don't think liking or not liking Microsoft has anything to do with this. I think not trusting Microsoft is the issue here. Microsoft has never been totally forthright in its relationships with other buisinesses, whether they are good at movie stuff is irrelivant in partnering with them.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
J. Michael Straczynski was credited as executive producer on "Babylon 5", and was very much involved in the day-to-day running of the show. (The only other credit he got was as writer for the scripts he actually wrote.)
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Clearly Hugo Weaving would.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
There's a novelization of "V for Vendetta" the movie. For people who don't want to be seen reading a comic book, I would guess. What a goddamn crock.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
"Where do you want to go today? Dirtbag!"
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...