The latest Bungie weekly updated also had a link to the three live action Halo shorts. No scifi/action fan can watch those and say they don't want two hours of it.

They seriously need to make this movie now.

While a Halo movie might be great, I can understand that the entertainment industry is shrinking - I don't blame major partners like Fox or Universal for saving their limited resources for projects that benefit their vision of the future of entertainment, as opposed to endorsing 'the alternative'.

Making a Halo movie probably wouldn't be a great move. People love the simplistic yet great design of the multi player, and not necessarily the story. I could be wrong but a Halo movie to me would only attract a small audience.

Finish the Movie.

Yeah I am dying to see a halo film. I loved the shorts. Keep fighting Peter Jackson!!

Halo's target audience is too limited for a movie.

@Tonx: Especially when you're working with a guy like Jackson who is known to spend nearly a billion dollars to make a film and then you have movies like 300 which cost less than half as much but make a lot. Movies are getting cheaper to make and thats hurting Peter Jacksons career. Jackson pretty much cast himself out of making big-budget films after the King Kong debacle. Could a Halo movie work? Absolutely. Will a studio get behind Peter Jackson to make it? Absolutely not.

@Huginn:

"Finish the Movie."

HAHA.

Here come the naysayers who've "only played a few co-op levels with a friend" trying to whither the story down to an alien invasion.

I would much prefer Weta work more on the Evangelion movie that has been talked about for so long... much longer than the Halo movie

My opinon...let "Blur studios" do the the movie, that small commerical was enough to get my money if it hit the big screen. I think that CG is the only way to go with a Halo movie, why be forced to work with limitations? I think that it should be as big and over the top as the consumers expect and lets be honest, there isn't a Master Chief suit on the planet that looks as good you would expect or a person to fill before mentioned suit... Go on hit the bar from the get go...get Blur on board and let Peter do his thing.

I'm still split on my thoughts of the movie. It could really backfire as a lot of people just won't care, while a few thousand fanatics will be ravenous for it. the story would need to be a gritty future war with a descent story all set in this deep space Sci-fi ark. And sci-fi hasn't been good for Hollywood since T2. Even sunshine, which was a descent movie, couldn't pull people back into the theaters for a sci-fi flick.

And I won't talk about AvP.

@Atamisk726:

Your concept of the economics behind making this a movie are so flawed its not even funny.

@OmegaKulu:

"Halo's target audience is too limited for a movie"

Then we will get the fans to see the movie three times and buy the DVD version! =P

I could see a movie work. Hell they could make it a trilogy.

"watch the fight"

make this movie blu-ray exclusive just to really piss people off :D

Come on!!! Get it done. I want this Halo movie, but only from Peter Jackson. I really think that a full CG Halo movie might be the way to go, but I would prefer they just do exactly what Peter Jackson has planned. I would literally pay $30 admission for this movie.

@ibelli: Umm, nearly a billion dollars? I don't know where you're pulling those numbers from, I suspect your ass, but All three LoTR movies cost 93,94,94 million dollars to make respectively. So that is a whopping 281 million dollars to gross .871,.926,1.118= 2.915 billion. That is a 10 to 1 profit margin, excluding the profits from DVD sales which are in the billions. Your reference ,300, only has a profit ratio of 7 to 1. Nice argument though, if it was actually any close to being true.

Even King Kong only cost 207 million and grossed 550 million. Giving it a modest 2 to 1 profit.

Really now that I think of it the most expensive movies ever are only around the 300 million mark, so you're "nearly a billion" comment is out to lunch.

@OmegaKulu:

dude, did you not just see Hollywood wants to make a Spyro game? Plus they want to make a "The Sims" movie and a Joust movie. I mean come on...if these can be made into movies then a multi-million dollar making franchise like Halo could EASILY be made into a great flick. And I'm willing to campaign to keep Neill Blompkamp involved in directing this movie. He was born to do this flick. Wait...I just mentioned this in the spyro movie thread...Did I just ESP the news?

@OmegaKulu

Almost as limited as Resident Evil's?

The live actions shorts seemed to work really well, but I don't think I'd like it too much if the movie was based on the game. Instead, it should be based on one of the books (preferably Fall of Reach) seeing as a major reason why so many people don't totally "get" the Halo story seems to be because they are missing the backstory to it.

@Datalock: I'm assuming the Spyro movie is some sort of tax aversion scheme like Uwe Boll's stuff. There is absolutely no way it makes sense otherwise.

@OmegaKulu:

The audience would grow tremendously if the movie was made. I know all kinds of people who hadn't read, or still haven't read the LotR Trilogy and loved the movies. Also, a movie like Halo with all those special effects, and Peter Jackson's name attached to it would draw a relatively large audience. That's not personally why I got to see a movie, but Transformers was pretty successful, and it was a pile of garbage. I'm sure there are better examples, but I just watched that movie, and oh man was it awful.

@ibelli:

actually, Peter Jackson isn't out of the 100 million dollar movie making style yet. After he's finished with "Lovely Bones" he's going to direct a series called Temeraire, then there's the speculation that he'll direct "The Hobbit" sometime in the future. He seems to love epic movies, but really who doesn't?

The only way that this movie will get made is if Paul W.S. Anderson is somehow involved, because he's contractually obligated to sink his fingers into any video game movie not being sodomized by Uwe Boll. In that case, Peter Jackson or no Peter Jackson, skinny Peter or fat Peter, the movie will star Milla Jovavovavilavich in the central role of Cortana, and Master Chief will be shunted off to the background while she singlehandedly stops the Covenant, destroys the Flood, and blows up Halo with a single pistol. (She won't be allowed to duel-wield until Halo 2).

@Lezard:
Oh Halo 1 pistol, what can't you kill?

While I think movies based on video games as a whole are almost always a bad idea I find it hard to imagine that MS and Peter Jackson are having a hard time getting this Halo movie going. Didn't Halo 3 just break the record for revenue in a single day!?!?!? And I guess all those Oscars on Peter Jackson mantel are meaningless too.

I think I'm beginning to understand why all these movie studios are losing money.

Whether you want/need/love/hate/dispise it, this movie will be made eventually in 1, 2, 5 or even 10 years or more.

Nostradamus has forseen it...

@FoxHoundADAM: Sure Halo 3 set records - but at an average price of $70. Hard to believe that for every person who bought the game there are six others who didn't but would see the movie. And those Oscars on Peter Jackson's mantle, they mean he's going to want more money from whatever studio finances the thing.

@4dSwissCheese:

The very same can be said about franchises like resident evil yet they still managed to somehow make enough $ to spur on the release of sequels.

@ibelli:
Movies are getting 'cheaper'? You're making a broad generalization that doesn't apply to the majority of successful Hollywood blockbusters. King Kong cost a lot, but it was still an enormous success. Look at his past successes in comparision with other films this year. Spider Man 3, for instance, cost $260 Million and was one of the most successful films of the year with a gross of about $900 Million. Lord of the Rings beat that three times over, and didn't even cost that much.

Anyway, if you're not a filmmaker or producer I don't see what authority you have to cast PJ 'out of big-budget' filmmaking. And besides, would you rather see Sam Raimi make The Hobbit? We'd probably end up with Bilbo doing a dance scene a-la-The Mask, Thorin would break down in tears 7 or 8 times, and Wilmer Valderrama would be cast as Smaug. That's not the world I want to live in.

@excalibre: But look at what sort of budget the RE movies are made on. And compare that to the budget MSFT and PJ want for the Halo movie.

@CitizenTian: Raimi is one of the only other people I'd like to see making "The Hobbit".

Sounds like Microsoft is gonna have to assemble a studio themselves at this rate...

...*imagines the world's first full-length feature film machinima*

...screw that, they need to make a Red vs Blue movie! Or at least shorts at the start of the movie.

@FoxHoundADAM: Although Halo 3 did break sales records, it's still not a guarantee (or necessarily a smart move) for the movie to be revived. The Halo film was canceled for a variety of factors, including:

1. The studios backing out at the size of the budget and the revelation that Peter Jackson would not actually be serving as director.
2. Microsoft's refusal to pick up the tab themselves, despite being financially able to do so.
3. An already shaky history of video game adaptations.
4. General level of awareness of the franchise outside of the games' core audience.

Despite all of this, a Halo movie could still do extremely well financially, like the first Tomb Raider (though it would need to do better to make a profit on what would most likely be a substantially larger budget), or it could fizzle out of the gate and be quickly forgotten like the second Tomb Raider. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within tanked so horribly that it kick-started the chain reaction of events that led to the Square Enix merger.

As for Halo 3's sales records, keep in mind that you don't need to sell as many games as you do tickets to earn an equal amount of revenue. Halo 3 costs $60 for the normal version, and $130 for the Cat Helmet Edition. A ticket to a movie at a local theater in my area costs roughly $9. Films that don't do well at the box office then have to rely on DVD sales to turn a profit, and that's not a guarantee, either.

And as for Peter Jackson's Oscars, keep in mind that not every Oscar that Return of the King won has his name on it. Also, I know more than one person that was, to put it politely, less than thrilled with his direction of King Kong. This is a moot point, however, as he wouldn't be directing Halo even if the film is revived.

@thePheonix9: Absolutely nothing.

@CitizenTian:

your first few points are extremly valid. At least up until you got into the Raimi bashing. Your really pigeon-holing his directing abilities from one movie. The man has a very visceral style of action. If you had actually WATCHED the Spider-Man movies or at least the Evil Dead movies, you'de see that he knows how to sell an action scene. But he also knows how to direct actors and get the most out of them on screen. Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson are not THAT dissimilar in their directing approach either. Both used to do some off-the-wall horror and genre-bending movies. Hell, Jackson directed "The Frighteners" back in the day and it still holds up to todays flicks. You could almost call Raimi his evil twin...but right now Jackson is the guy with the gun.

naa, this combination would be better, Metroid or Metroid Prime story + Jame cameron = great action and things blowing up without any good reason, me like that :D...

@Datalock:
No doubt Evil Dead, II, and Army of Darkness are awesome. But dude...Spider man 3...the emo haircut thing...the dancing...Bruce's cameo ended up being my favorite part of the film :( . Sure the action was great, but you need more than that, you know? Anyways, no one can argue Raimi has always been a great director. But neither he nor anyone else can handle a fantasy empire of Tolkien proportions like Jackson and Company. The reason why? Years and years of pre-production and utter dedication to their films.

Oh, and Frighteners is awesome, but dude, you've got to see Braindead / Dead Alive.

Heavenly Creatures is great.

Mmm... Winslet...

I'm very surprized that Fox pulled out. Isn't Lowest Common Denominator™ their bread & butter?

Internet explorer just decided to open itself 60 times the moment I opened this article. After stemming the flow of Internet Explorer (which I don't even use) I feel like that dude with the beard and the cane talking to the burning bush. It's a sign! Halo Movie is endorsed by God...or perhaps Skynet...

...Moses! I remember.

@Bon5ai: You're a nerd. My point : Simple. Peter Jackson makes movies that cost too much for a studio to be willing to finance. Whats he working on now? Oh, right, an inexpensive movie based on a novel whos budget I'm sure he will find someway to overspend.

So in closing: Eat my ass.

I love the way everyone is offering advice on why Peter Jackson, the man who captured the Holy Grail of film making in successfully adapting Lord Of the Rings for the big screen, yes the way all the fans of video games are offering advice on the movie business to this man.

I bet on another website, devoted to movies, there's a thread in which film geeks are offering Will Wright advice on how to make games.

I find the idea really stupid, how the hell are you supposed to watch a movie in which the main character doesn't even talk -
and don't go giving me examples of some deep artistic movies, because Halo isn't one.
Fun game, decent story, but not film worthy.

@TEHFLUFFZCOMEBACK... um, come again? I don't know how you're supposed to watch a movie where the main character doesn't talk... But more importantly, why on earth do you think they'd chose to mute a character (I assume we're both talking about Master Chief) who speaks in nearly every cut-scene of the three games he's been in? I don't understand...