Halo Movie Confirmed!

[Solid Snake]

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/624/624363p1.html

June 10, 2005 - Two Hollywood studios are joining forces with Microsoft to bring Halo to the big screen. Today's Hollywood Reporter broke the news claiming that 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures are in negotiations to presumably split the production costs and divide the distribution rights for a flick based on the smash hit videogame franchise. Universal would release the movie in North America and Fox would handle overseas distribution.


Word of the deal comes just a few days after the script was delivered to studios by messengers dressed as Master Chief. Microsoft had developed the project in-house, hiring 28 Days Later screenwriter Alex Garland to pen the script. They were originally asking for $10 million up-front and a percentage of the film's gross, but that deal was reportedly too much for the studios to stomach. No details on the new deal have been announced. Part of the original deal that may have remained intact is an agreement that the studio adhere to strict guidelines that have been set by the developers.

No directors have been linked to the project since the initial rumored involvement (or disinterest) of filmmaker Ridley Scott. Scott was said to have been approached with the idea of a Halo movie and upon further review said that he "didn't see a world for a story." But this was before Halo 2 was released and made oodles of money (and well before Garland's script was written), so it's possible Mr. Scott has adjusted his perspective. We'll let you know as soon as there are new developments.

-- IGN FilmForce

Sounds pretty cool I hope the movie is a prequel to the games and gives a story on the orgins of spartans and the orgins of Master Chief.

[Crash]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/624/624363p1.html



Sounds pretty cool I hope the movie is a prequel to the games and gives a story on the orgins of spartans and the orgins of Master Chief.

oh man yeah.... that'd be the only way the movie would be cool

[MuGen]

The origin of master chief is in Halo.....the game... they said they wanted to create a super soldier to combat the invading menace....a la Master Chief.

I'll probably shell out $10 to see this, it's a good plot to go about to make a good action flick.

[Crash]

Originally Posted by Sony

The origin of master chief is in Halo.....the game... they said they wanted to create a super soldier to combat the invading menace....a la Master Chief.

I'll probably shell out $10 to see this, it's a good plot to go about to make a good action flick.

no he means the real story... the story of reach and spartan 1.0's and spartan 2.0's ...kidnapping children and turning them into spartans... covenant attacking reach, and master chief escaping... and have it END at the beginning of the halo 1 game.... that'd be the best


basically make the fall of reach into a movie..





but they'll probably just make it about some crap mystery and the flood and probably forget the covies all together...

[Jonbo298]

This will become like all other 'FPS Movies' (bad comparison or whatever). Typical shootem up alien move that stars The Rock as badass Master Chief! grrrrr! YEAH!

[Acebot44]

He'll probably be the chief though....

I'd love to see the fall of reach on the big screen though. Good Book.

[Professor S]

I see a LOT of changes being made to the story to allow for this to be a movie. The biggest will be that Master Chief will NOT be wearing a helmet, or at least he won't be for the majority of the film. In a video game world you can relate to your characters by playing through their perspective. In a movie it will be too hard for the audience to relate to the emotions and ordeals of a character when they can't see their face.

Besides, you know that this movie will have a big name star in it, and why would a studio pay a big name to hide under a bunch of armor and a helmet? I'm also eagerly awaiting the love scene between the Chief and hot-ass-hologram-babe-o-the-year Cortana.

[Crash]

Or they can make the main characters about the Spartan 1.1's, and have masterchief be a side character. It would be a lot better that way. master chief is more machine than human, and if they concentrate the whole movie around him, it'd be stupid.

Think how terminator was about John Conners, not about the Terminotor himself.

[Crash]

DAMMIT, they are having the dude who wrote 28 days later (see crappiest make-it-up-as you go movie out there) He also wrote The Beach

LOS ANGELES, June 9 - Hollywood does not like it when outsiders play certain games.

That was the message sent this week to Microsoft and its agents at the Creative Artists Agency by movie studios outraged at the aggressive proposal being shopped for the film version of the popular Xbox video game Halo.

Even studio executives, known for their lavish spending, winced at Microsoft's demands, including a $10 million upfront fee for rights, approval over the cast and director, and 60 first-class plane tickets for Microsoft representatives and their guests to the movie's premiere.

As a result, the auction Microsoft had hoped for never materialized. Within 24 hours of reading the script, based on the game about an alien universe, five studios dropped out of the bidding, including DreamWorks SKG and Paramount Pictures. The two that remained, 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures, balked at the price.

But in the end, after intense negotiations, Microsoft and Creative Artists have negotiated a deal, although it is not yet final. The intense, high-stakes talks that got them there indicate just how big the video game business has grown - and how attuned to its power Hollywood studios have become.

To many in Hollywood, it was a stunning display of hubris on behalf of Creative Artists and its client, Microsoft, which has a reputation for running roughshod over its rivals in the software business.

Halo is one of the most popular video game franchises; the sequel to Halo, released last year, sold 6.8 million copies globally. But few video game adaptations have proved popular at the domestic box office. Of the 19 adaptations tracked by Boxofficemojo.com, only one earned more than $100 million in the United States: "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider."

What irritated studio executives most was Microsoft's demands for broad creative control, even though the company was not spending a dime to make the film.

Ultimately, Microsoft, Universal and Fox tentatively agreed to a complex arrangement on reduced financial terms, though all parties involved say creative issues could still scuttle the deal. The talks were to continue through Friday.

"If you are going to play the toughest hand of the year, you better have the goods," said Bruce Berman, a former Warner Brothers Pictures executive who now runs Village Roadshow Pictures and was not involved in the bidding. "I think it's great that the studios didn't buy it on the terms first offered. It shows restraint."

Microsoft and its representatives see the matter differently. "No one in Seattle, or me, or anyone else wants a bad movie," said Peter Schlessel, a former Columbia Pictures studio executive who was hired by Microsoft to help manage the project and served as intermediary among the studios, the agents and Microsoft. "If you put a house up for sale, you need to put a price on it."

Added David O'Connor, a partner at Creative Artists who was involved in the negotiations, "Our job is to get the best deal for our client."

Nearly a dozen studio executives, talent agents and representatives of Microsoft who either read the script or were informed of the deal terms agreed to talk about the Halo auction process on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitive nature of those discussions.

The process began at about 11:30 a.m. on Monday when several actors dressed as the Master Chief, a green-helmeted warrior from Halo, walked into the lobbies of several Hollywood studios, scripts in hand. Microsoft had taken the unusual step of paying Alex Garland, the writer of the horror film "28 Days Later" and a Creative Artists client, about $1 million to write a script faithful to the Halo universe.

Studio executives were asked to read it while the Master Chiefs waited in the lobbies. At Paramount, one studio executive said, the Master Chief held his helmet in his lap because he was hot. When executives were finished reading, each studio was given a proposal with Microsoft's terms and 24 hours to respond.

Aside from the $10 million upfront fee, Microsoft was asking for 15 percent of the studio's first-dollar box- office gross receipts. The budget could be no less than $75 million, not including the fees for the actors and director. If the studio did not make the movie, it would forfeit the $10 million fee.

Microsoft also wanted creative control, with the script and characters unchanged. The studio would have to pay to fly a Microsoft representative to watch all cuts of the movie, and the studio would forgo merchandising rights.

Such an approach was a gamble for Microsoft, given that it does not have a proven track record like the high-priced Hollywood actors and directors, like Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, who make similar demands. Mr. Schlessel described the proposal as "a framework for what people should be thinking about." Creative Artists, which had a team of agents working on the deal for a year, had a lot at stake, too. If even one studio agreed to the terms, the firm would be in a position to ask for the same deal for other video game clients.

Hollywood saw Microsoft's and Creative Artists' proposal as less of a framework than an ultimatum. By Monday night, both DreamWorks and New Line Cinema had dropped out. On Tuesday morning, Disney, Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers Pictures were gone, too. Executives at the exiting studios argued that if Microsoft was so concerned about preserving the Halo universe, it could have financed the movie on its own, as the director George Lucas did with the "Star Wars" franchise.

"Microsoft does not want to be in the business of financing movies," Mr. Schlessel said.

That left Universal and Fox. Universal, according to three people who were involved with the talks, liked the idea but the price was too high. So Donna Langley, president of production at Universal Pictures, instructed the company's business affairs unit to begin negotiations with Mr. Schlessel and Creative Artists to see if they could find common ground.

On Tuesday, Universal began looking for a financing partner. Fox was interested but rigid about what creative rights it would cede to Microsoft, the three people said. Over the next 24 hours, the separate camps scrambled to come up with a deal.

Late Wednesday afternoon, two of the people involved said, Mr. Schlessel, Universal and Fox tentatively agreed to complex financial terms: Microsoft would be paid no more than $5 million for Halo, half the original asking price. That amount was part of a deal to give Microsoft 10 percent of the first-dollar box-office gross receipts, less than before but still considerable given Microsoft's lack of a track record. Universal, in turn, would oversee production and get domestic distribution rights, while Fox would get the foreign rights and have a say in production.

Both studios declined to comment on Thursday. That is because the deal is contingent on Microsoft's agreeing to give up some creative control, the two people said.

All sides are sure to claim victory once a deal is announced. Microsoft can tell fans it preserved the integrity of the Halo games; Creative Artists will try to demand even more money for its clients; and Fox and Universal will lay claim to a hot video game title and a potential future partner in Microsoft. The other studios, for their part, will have to decide whether to go along when other eager video game makers come calling.

"The bottom line is, If you don't ask, you are not going to get it," said Tom Sherak, a veteran movie marketing executive at Revolution Studios. "But the one thing about Hollywood is that is very hard to bully anyone when you are asking for that kind of price."

[Professor S]

I really liked 28 Days Later (especially after repeated viewings), but to each their own.

As for making Master Chief a side character... well honestly that would make no sense what-so-ever in terms of marketing the film. Most people who are going to see Halo The Movie wil be going to see Master Chief kick much booty. He is the only real mascot Xbox has, afterall. Not including him as a main character would be like making a Super Mario Bros. movie with Mario and Luigi only making cameos.

[Xantar]

Originally Posted by The Strangler

I really liked 28 Days Later (especially after repeated viewings), but to each their own.

As for making Master Chief a side character... well honestly that would make no sense what-so-ever in terms of marketing the film. Most people who are going to see Halo The Movie wil be going to see Master Chief kick much booty. He is the only real mascot Xbox has, afterall. Not including him as a main character would be like making a Super Mario Bros. movie with Mario and Luigi only making cameos.

Not necessarily. I think we should be careful not to overestimate Master Chief's popularity and influence. Flash a picture of the Master Chief to a random person on the street and what response do you get? Now, show a picture of Lara Croft or Mario or Sonic (you'll probably get more response from Lara Croft due to the movie. You get my point anyway).

Let's face it, as a main character, Master Chief is pretty bland. He doesn't talk much, you never see his face and he doesn't even do anything particularly nifty or cool like run super-fast or kung fu. He's just some genetically modified soldier guy mowing down aliens.

Halo 2 sold some 500,000 units on opening day alone which is mighty impressive. On the other hand, summer blockbusters seek to draw in two or three million people on opening day. "Most" people who are coming to see Halo: The Movie are in fact not going to be there specifically to see the Master Chief (who should probably get a name, by the way). Most of the people in the movie audience probably won't even know who the Master Chief is. They will be there to see an action movie with explosions, aliens, cool weapons and vehicles.

I know you all like Halo and all, but keep a little perspective. In the eyes of the world at large, which is not made mostly of gamers, this is going to be a case of yet another videogame being turned into an action movie with lots of machine gun fire. And it doesn't help that all of Halo's sterling qualities—the balanced weapons, the tight control, the wonderful A.I., Xbox Live—don't translate to the screen at all. All you've got is a faceless, personality-less protagonist (unless the studios make some changes, and they really should) and a story that's frankly pretty generic. And be honest: how many of you were playing Halo 2 because you were ABSOLUTELY DYING to know what happens next?

Or were you eagerly anticipating it because of the Xbox Live capability and the dual wielding?

The movie might make money. It might be entertaining for adolescents. But it won't be any better than any of the other videogame movies if it stays slavishly rooted and faithful to the game.

[Crash]

I tell you one thing. You guys listen to the I Love Bees story, and you'll have new appreciation for the Halo Storyline. Burn these to a disk and listen to them in your car. You WILL be amazed.

http://ilovebees.com/humptydumpty.html