Slashdot Log In
Fox And Universal Say Goodbye To Halo Movie
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Oct 20, 2006 09:11 AM
from the series-of-unfortunate-events dept.
from the series-of-unfortunate-events dept.
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."
Related Stories
[+]
Peter Jackson Talks the Halo Movie 90 comments
Via Kotaku, an interview on Ain't It Cool News with Peter Jackson talking about the in-conception Halo Movie. From the article: "QUINT: Now, there's no reason on Earth shouldn't easily and faithfully be adapted into a PG-13 movie. However, do you anticipate there being a harder cut considering how gruesome the Flood aspect of the story is? PETER JACKSON: That's interesting... It's something, I must admit, that's not a conversation I've had with anybody yet. It's a conversation that I'm sure will happen. Look, the reality of the budget is that I would imagine the studio are going to be pretty insistent on a PG-13, which, as you say, is certainly not an impossible thing pull off."
[+]
Halo Film Still On Track 70 comments
Eurogamer reports that, despite the decision by Fox and Universal to back out of the movie's production, the film version of Halo will move forward. From the article: "Now Microsoft has released an official statement via the Bungie website which reads: 'We are disappointed that Universal and Fox wanted to significantly renegotiate the financial points of the deal. But the Halo franchise is hugely popular and our goal remains the same - to find a partner that shares our passion and will creatively collaborate with us to best represent the story and spirit of the Halo franchise ... Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and the rest of the creative team are dedicated to ensuring the Halo movie becomes a reality,' the statement continues.
[+]
Halo Movie Postponed, Street Fighter Movie On 76 comments
FofR writes "Given the previous statements concerning the Halo Movie's stalled progress, it should come as no surprise that the movie is now officially on hold." From the article: "At this time Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, along with their partner, Microsoft, have mutually agreed to postpone making a feature film based on the Halo video game universe until we can fulfill the promise we made to millions of Halo fans throughout the world that we would settle for no less than bringing a first class film to the big screen. We are fully supportive of Director Neill Blomkamp's vision of the film. Neill is a tremendously gifted filmmaker and his preliminary work on Halo is truly awe-inspiring. While it will undoubtedly take a little longer for Halo to reach the big screen, we are confident that the final feature film will be well worth the wait." You'll be happy to know even if a Jackson-inspired Halo isn't coming our way, at least we can look forward to another Street Fighter movie.
[+]
News: Halo Movie Is Still Dead 67 comments
1up is reporting that despite numerous reports of its death, the Halo movie isn't quite completely cancelled ... yet. As far as Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson, and the WETA folks are concerned, things are still just in a holding pattern. "Kamins also shot down both the rumors of a swelling budget and dissatisfaction with Blomkamp. 'The only budget the filmmakers every spoke about was $145 million less the 12.5% rebate that you get from shooting in New Zealand, which would put it at about $128 million,' said [Jackson representative Ken Kamins]. And of the director, Kamins said, 'Everybody is supremely confident in Neall. Part of what excited Peter and Fran was Neill's vision. We're very confident this film will move forward with the creative partners intact, who will take the film to production.'" Update: 10/30 18:58 GMT by Z : It looks like that post was made from outdated sources.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
I'd call this a smart move. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'd call this a smart move. (Score:5, Insightful)
- Batman Begins was estimated at $150,000,000
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was estimated at $93,000,000
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers was estimated at $94,000,000
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was estimated at $94,000,000
- King Kong was estimated at $207,000,000
- Star Wars Episode III was estimated at $113,000,000
- X-Men 3 was estimated at $210,000,000
Long story short, Jackson would have to prove that a video game movie would appeal to a wide enough audience to justify comparing it to King Kong and X-Men 3. Considering that video game movies always do poorly, I can see why the studios don't believe him.
Parent
i have to disagree with you somewhat. (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Parent
Re:i have to disagree with you somewhat. (Score:5, Insightful)
FWIW, I actually thought Doom was the best video game movie ever made. I was especially impressed by the training they received to "look" like real soldiers. If it hadn't pumped up the expectations for extreme violence so much, it probably would have done even better.
Let's be honest, though. Tomb Raider sold heavily on sex appeal rather than story line. The movie itself was less than spectacular.
If we ignore that and take the profits at face value, then we're still nowhere near close enough to make a $200,000,000 movie. The total return on Tomb Raider was less than it would cost to finance a $200,000,000 movie, much less make a profit on it.
I agree completely. The story is key to making a good movie. Traditionally, Comic Book movies only did so-so themselves. That is, until some real talent started stepping up to the plate and adding incredible storytelling behind them. However, comic books have incredible amounts of storyline to pick and chose from. Video Games do not have that luxury, and may even be unsuitable for live-action. (Witness: Super Mario Bros.) In addition, many comic books are culturally iconic, allowing them to reach an audience far beyond the actual readership. This is something that video games rarely share.
Actually, that double-green bubble means that I'm a friend of a friend. You never actually marked me as such. But thank you for your kind words. I'd try to keep my comment quality high.
Parent
Re:i have to disagree with you somewhat. (Score:5, Informative)
That's just really, REALLY sad. Take it from a real soldier: they "looked" like a bunch of second-rate actors trying way too hard, and failing miserably. The special effects were the only cool thing about the whole movie, and the "kill mode" part (or whatever you want to call it) killed even that. I'm a huge fan of Halo, but seeing the fiasco that Doom got turned into actually makes me wish that they'd scrap the Halo movie. After playing the game and reading the books, I REALLY don't need to be traumatized by seeing it raped on the big-screen.
Parent
Re:i have to disagree with you somewhat. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm still waiting for "Pac Man, The Movie" starring John Goodman as a man with an uncontrolable appetite who is literally haunted by ghosts from his past. Oh shit, I just spotted it on your list. Please god, send that asteroid now!
Parent
3 Bad Video Game Plots for $1 (Score:5, Funny)
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....
Parent
Re:i have to disagree with you somewhat. (Score:4, Funny)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWL6j0SvqV0 [youtube.com]
Parent
Re:i have to disagree with you somewhat. (Score:5, Funny)
Ha! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
Man, I'm gonna start announcing Duke Nukem products that I have no serious intent or means to bring to market. Duke Nukem airlines, anyone? How about Duke Nukem cola?
Parent
Re:I'd call this a smart move. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:I'd call this a smart move. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:I'd call this a smart move. (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact, that's why no company anywhere gears their advertising towards teens.
Have a critical look at adverts, and you'll find very few adverts aimed at teens, simply because they are not naive enough to want something just cos its on telly, but not rich enough to support more sophisticated or mass marketing. There are exceptions to this when the market is dominated by teens (used to be soda pop, and is now phones+iPods), but look at banks, clothes, toys, food, etc and you dont see any serious attempt to directly advertise to the 15-18 markets, its all indirect and non-age specific brand building.
Teens are too easily swayed by peer pressure. If you build a quality product, its still too random whether they will decide on you product or not.
Parent
Re:I'd call this a smart move. (Score:5, Informative)
Spiderman gross: $821,706,375
Spiderman 2 gross: $783,924,485
X-Men gross: $295,999,717
X-Men 2 gross: $406,400,513
X-Men 3 gross: $455,360,014
Hulk gross: $225,600,000
Daredevil: $179,143,518
Doom gross: $54,612,337
Mortal Kombat: $122,133,227
Tomb Raider: $274,644,183
Tomb Raider 2: $156,453,758
Parent
Re:I'd call this a smart move. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:I'd call this a smart move. (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:I'd call this a smart move. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that NOT all video games have such a rich history. Games like Mario Bros and Doom in their infancy had a vague Shadow of a plot that was little more then a sorry excuse for why the pixels on the screen were dancing the way there were. Sure newer games have more of a script and are becoming more cinematic but even still the history isn't there, You might get 1 or 2 so-so game scripts to base your movie off of and that's if you're lucky. The rest of the movie's script and character design has to be invented by the writers, and to make it good enough to REALLY capture the feel of the game the writer has to do a whole lot more work to make it worth while for the audience.
Halo is a little different though, not only doe it have 2 games with very SOLID scripts (and a 3rd with the script already written I'm sure) it also has a series of very well written novels as well as a comic book, all based in the same world. In addition it has a loyal fan base that keeps tabs on all the little nuances of the franchise, similar to what you find in other sci-fi fan bases the likes of Star Wars, Star Trek, or Battlestar Galactica.
Halo has more then enough there to write a good movie script that will make a movie people want to watch. It's not the only game like this either, both Tomb Raider and Silent Hill have more backstory and well written game scripts then most games (though not nearly as good as what is available for Halo) and those were clearly far and wide better received films then other video game adaptations of games with little to no plot.
Parent
Re:I'd call this a smart move. (Score:4, Funny)
You have a funny definition of "crap" there boy-o. Especially when you're talking about the only really good movie ever made about my namesake.
Parent
Re:I'd call this a smart move. (Score:5, Funny)
I can do better than that:
At
Parent
Re:I'd call this a smart move. (Score:5, Funny)
Most of that budget was going towards film. After all, this was going to be the first movie shot entirely in slow motion.
Parent
Re:I'd call this a smart move. (Score:5, Informative)
For more details I suggest heading to http://halomovie.trivialbeing.net/ [trivialbeing.net] where they have a video/news broadcast and some footage of Jackson's response.
As an aside, they quote: "Microsoft is already in talks with other distribution partners and preparation for the movie will continue. Most of this development is at Peter Jackson's Weta effects studios in New Zealand, so delays should be small."
Parent
What huh? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What huh? (Score:5, Funny)
They left out the most important bit of news - Fox and Universal have now gone to Uwe Boll to get the movie made.
Parent
Re:What huh? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes. Rest assured their lawyers are working diligently on who to sue so such a good decision never happens again.
Parent
Odd (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Odd (Score:5, Insightful)
Fixed that for you.
Parent
He was only a producer in this one (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Parent
dooms was great (Score:4, Funny)
$200 million?! (Score:5, Funny)
Good Move (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good Move (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
He's not exactly what I would call an "untried director." His background is in high-profile commercials, particularly ones featuring photoreal mecha such as the dancing Citroen transformer. His showreel [rokkit.tv] is very, very impressive (check out his documentary-style short film "Alive in Joburg".)
It has to be said... (Score:5, Funny)
Recipe For Failure (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Who needs a big Halo movie? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why doesn't Microsoft Fund this? (Score:5, Insightful)
That sucks. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Nonstarter (Score:5, Funny)
Am I the only one with confidence (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
"Broke Even", eh? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Office on the Big Screen (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Office on the Big Screen (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
People Forget - Halo was inspired by a book (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
I've heard talk of book-adaptations, but that's just par for the course.
Re:Glad (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:other factors (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Parent
Re:other factors (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent
Re:other factors (Score:4, Informative)
"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.
Parent
Re:I don't agree!! (Score:5, Interesting)
directors are to film what executives are to corporations. For the most part - they impart a vision, manage the process, and assemble an exemplary team for the various departments. having peter jackson behind him mitigates risk, and assures that the teams involved will be top notch. but if the director doesn't inspire confidence - then the trickle-down is obvious.
i'm surprised they hung around this long. in my experience, private investors would not have risked 10 million on a first time feature director. i say this being an analyst who analyzes film properties for private investors.
The flags:
-known property (previously widely released IP - or one of several profitable genres: horror, black/urban, youth comedy; the foregoing are the most profitable genres of feature film).
-attached talent (A-list, etc/respective to the genre).
-director's track record (box office/public perception).
-budget.
It should be understood that the feature film industry is about making movies with other people's money. So whoever these studios are dealing with probably just weren't satisfied with the guy to dole out that kind of cash. I don't blame them.
Sci-fi films mitigate risk by using the Japanese market as a buffer; american sci-fi films tend to do well there. in this instance though - because of the cultural backlash in Japan over the X-Box business itself - there is a risk of not being able to monetize this market and this is a huge risk of exposure, especially because data indicates a slight contraction of the US moviegoing audience.
Overall, this would be a strong pass, especially considering the track record for game movies.
I do however, think this film is going to do very well. I just couldn't advise anyone to get in at these prices.
Parent
Re:I don't agree!! (Score:4, Insightful)
I would have hoped the studios would have more faith in Jackson being a producer than worrying about the fame of the director.
Parent