Friday, October 20, 2006

Doom for ´Halo´ movie?



Universal Studios and 20th Century Fox have pulled out of the ´Halo´ movie, leaving the project in jeopardy. Variety reports, citing Ken Kamins, a representative of executive producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh.

"What happened was this: Universal, on behalf of both studios, asked for a meeting with the filmmakers just prior to the due date of a significant payment. Basically, they said that in order to move forward with the film, the filmmakers had to significantly reduce their deals. They waited until the last minute to have this conversation. Peter and Fran, after speaking with their producing partners and with Microsoft and Bungee (the studio that designed the original game), respectfully declined."

While the exit of two studios would seem to imperil "Halo," Kamins said Microsoft is already in talks with other distribution partners. Prep work on the film continues, he said. One advantage is having Jackson and Walsh as exec producers: Most of the pre-production is being done at their visual effects studios in New Zealand, Weta Digital and Weta Workshop, so there will be no stoppage.

The article goes on to speculate that the inexperience of director Neill Blomkamp also contributed to the studios´ decision. Blomkamp would celebrate his directing debut with ´Halo´.


Having met Peter Jackson at X06 and having asked him about his upcoming ´Halo´ media hybrids, I got the feeling that Jackson´s focus was firmly on those projects. There was no talk of the movie - although, to be fair, Jackson is only executive producer and doesn´t direct it. Still, I do believe that the two studios pulling out spells doom for the ´Halo´ movie.

Source: Variety
Thanks to: Joystiq

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

It'd be funny if Jackson pulled out at the last minute and Uwe Boll takes command on the Halo movie, including direction.

Anonymous said...

Let's speculate about what's on the startup disc for the Wii!

Or, let's speculate on what Perrin Kaplan says are the minor surprises that are still left for us (hardcore gamers that are "Matt-IGN's people").

30 days left for the U.S. release -- let's talk about the Wii!

Anonymous said...

I agree with the above post; since the Wii will be released in North America in one month there should be more Wii related articles.

My question to everyone would be:

How do you think Nintendo will/should handle the next 30 days?

My opinion would be that they will need an aggressive marketing campaign across the board; including television, radio, internet, and in store ads. Because as it stands there are still many people who have no idea what the Nintendo Wii is and will giggle at its unique name. If they are to truly fulfill their “blue-ocean” strategy they must have advertising in all the proper mediums. Casual gamers / non-gamers more then likely do not watch g4/mtv (thank god) and I think Nintendo knows this and hopefully will reach out to the best of their ability to bring in this as of yet untapped audience.

Just my opinion

Anonymous said...

some guy,

Interesting point -- there are many out there who still don't yet know that Nintendo is coming out with a new console. And unlike the DS, Nintendo will not get a lot of free advertisment in the form of gamers carrying Wiis around in public..
...or will they? !!

-FlyingSquirrl

Anonymous said...

Im wondering how many people in new zealand know about the wii? of course i do and im sure the other 10 nintendo fans from around here do to but the only advertising is the two posters on the walls of each EB store that promot us to pre order. there are 28 EB stores in new zealand which means the total amount of wii advertising in new zealand is about 56 A2 sized posters. gud thng they hav mouth watering pictures of wiis on em or u might miss em

BTW i feel guilty about not talking about falafels post so on an almost related note id like to appolagise on behalf of new zealand nd especally my wellington crew for suporting xbox.

:P

Anonymous said...

prompt*

Anonymous said...

Falafel,
Is it just me or have you run out of steam? This was once the first site I would read when I wanted to read Wii news, now since September it´s been terrible. I don´t care about Halo or HD-DVD or Blu-Ray.
What happened to DEFINITIVE SPECULATION?

Anonymous said...

The console is a month from release, with almost all details about the system already known! What do you EXPECT? :P