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Peter Jackson to Executive Produce Halo Movie 277

Posted by Zonk from the i-need-a-weapon dept.
e03179 writes "According to Reuters, 'the Oscar-winning creative team behind the The Lord of the Rings films, including director Peter Jackson, has been named to run the production of the upcoming film based on Microsoft Corp.'s blockbuster Halo video game, the company said on Tuesday.' The film will be shot in New Zealand and Jackson's production and post-production studios will be used. World-wide release is set for mid-2007 by Fox and Universal. The then rumor was started by Gamespot two weeks ago and was previously covered by Slashdot." Okay, *now* I'm interested. More details available on the Bungie site.
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Peter Jackson to Executive Produce Halo Movie More

Peter Jackson to Executive Produce Halo Movie

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  • I've got a good title... (Score:5, Funny)

    by catdevnull ( 531283 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @02:30PM (#13715495)
    How about "Red vs Blue"? ...oh, wait...

  • 3 Hours? (Score:2, Funny)

    by mysqlrocks ( 783488 )
    Yes, but my question is this: Will the movie be 3+ hours long?
    • Yes, but my question is this: Will the movie be 3+ hours long?

      Not without an ending.

      (I kid, I kid.)

    • Re:3 Hours? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Jambon ( 880922 )
      Yes, but my question is this: Will the movie be 3+ hours long?

      Yes, and it will start out with a view of Halo, and a deep dark voice saying:

      "One ring to rule them all....."

    • If it takes it from Halo 1 exclusively, then it might be 3 hours; 1.5 hours of the normal movie, and then 1.5 hours retracing the same steps backwards, and if it takes things up to the "end" of Halo 2, then whatever the length, it'll end about at least a half hour before it gets around to wrapping anything up.

      But to be serious (as serious as one should be with, yaknow, entertainment), it probably won't follow the games too rabidly. And this will probably be a good thing. See, for example, the Resident
  • Halo becoming a movie was inevitable. That was obvious ever since Bungie previewed Halo at MacWorld some years ago.

  • Yaup (Score:2, Insightful)

    by GoMMiX ( 748510 )
    Halo is the perfect example of how Microsoft can buy a great product and put it's name on it like they had crap to do with the development.

    • Re:Yaup (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Surt ( 22457 )
      Same thing with bungie though, bungie just paid some programmers and artists to make the game, and then slapped their name on it.

    • Re:Yaup (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @02:45PM (#13715661)
      Halo is the perfect example of how Microsoft can buy a great product and put it's name on it like they had crap to do with the development.

      Or, like Disney with a Pixar film. Or American Airlines with a Boeing aircraft. People who put a product out in front of that product's consumers/users generally have their name associated with it. But I suppose you're the sort that never reads the credits, and assumes that no one else does, either. Do you really think that MS's cash, audience, game platform, etc., has nothing to do with the success of the game? I think Pixar's work is fantastic... but I know that the success of say, the Toy Story franchise, is at least partly owed to Disney's professional marketing teams - even though they didn't color a single pixel. Don't pretend that marketing isn't important. Great games with no marketing frequently fail. Mediocre games with lots of marketing often get results. But great games with great marketing really attract an audience, and that's why it's done. Disney coughed up a lot of money into marketing and distribution in its partnership with Pixar, just like MS does with the games they front. Of course, things with Pixar/Disney have gotten a little rough lately. That will definitely be too bad for Disney, since only Pixar can do what Pixar does.

      Come on, admit it. You're worried that Jackson will make a very cool (or at least, successful) movie, and that MS will get a little street cred buff as a result of having been involved with the product's successfully large audience.
      • Disney and Pixar were complementary companies. Disney can develop the Graphics and Pixar can't do the Marketing. Both have suffered from the split-up.

  • That works out well (Score:5, Funny)

    by katana ( 122232 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @02:33PM (#13715526) Homepage
    By the time he's done with Halo, it should be just about time to start filming Duke Nukem Forever.
  • ... was Larry Niven, who would probably give his left nut to get someone like Jackson to do Ringworld.

  • So? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Musteval ( 817324 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @02:34PM (#13715531)
    From Wikipedia:
    An executive producer of a motion picture is typically a producer who is not necessarily involved in any creative or technical aspects of production. They generally handle business issues, and may be a financier of a movie. Some executive producers act as representatives of the studio or production company that is releasing or producing a film, occasionally being credited as Executive in charge of production.

    So, um, why does it matter that he's doing this?

    • Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mr Guy ( 547690 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @02:37PM (#13715573) Journal
      For the exact reason it got posted here. The Exec. Producer's entire job is to raise money and hype. Often, they do that with their name alone.
    • The man with the money usually is the man with real control. I can't say I have any real knowledge of the specific case of executive producers, but I would imagine that wether the creative team likes it or not, creative control ends up in the hands of the producer. I think this explains how some production companies (like Fox Searchlight Pictures, IMO) can consistently create good movies just by doing the "business" end of making movies well.

      • Re:So? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Pluvius ( 734915 ) <pluvius3@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @03:20PM (#13716096) Journal
        Producers handle the overarching direction of a project, while directors are the ones who handle the direction of elements within a project. Since movies very rarely have much of an overarching direction (since that would require planned sequels), movie directors are far more important than movie producers as far as creative control goes. The opposite is true with TV shows, as they have many episodes a year (making the producer more important) and each episode tends to be much shorter than a movie (making the director less important).

        Film producers did once have more creative control, but that was because of the studio system, where there were no independent films on the radar and the people working under the producers had to grit their teeth and bear it. Now-a-days "the man with the money" really doesn't mean much to the movie itself; the executive producer basically exerts his creative control by trying to keep the movie on budget and giving it the final OK. Now making a movie financially successful, on the other hand...

        Rob
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:So? (Score:5, Informative)

      by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @03:24PM (#13716137) Homepage
      I'll let you in on a little secret: "Producer" credits have no set meaning. It doesn't necessarily mean you're involved creatively, but it doesn't mean you're not. It doesn't mean you've put up your own money and handled business issues yourself, but it doesn't mean you didn't.

      This gets particularly hairy when you hear titles like "Executive Producer" or "Co-Producer". These can be almost honorary titles. However, in a movie, when you have a creative type who's listed as "executive producer", there's a good chance he's running the show, but has chosen not to direct the thing himself (i.e. Lucas and Star Wars).

      Due to his success with the LoTR movies, I'm guessing he's not hurting for work/money, and therefore, if he's getting involved with Halo, it's probably because he's interested in it. Meaning he probably won't be creatively detached. Meaning, if you're a Peter Jackson fan, it's good news for Halo.

      • And for those who will correct me on the "Lucas and Star Wars" thing, no, he didn't direct ALL of them, but he was the Executive Producer on all of them, and very involved with the creative aspects of all of them.

  • And Spielburg to Direct... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @02:35PM (#13715558)
    Pong.
    The touching movie about two lines and the square ball they share.

    Has Hollywood run out of ideas?

    willie

  • Seems only appropriate to mention Doom (Score:5, Funny)

    by apankrat ( 314147 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @02:35PM (#13715561) Homepage
    http://www.doommovie.com/ [doommovie.com]

    Went to see Serenity this weekend and they showed Doom trailer that
    featured nice shots of something being poked at with a chainsaw :)

    The story line seemed to be unintrusively good too - "Mars. Horrible
    disaster. If it breathes, shoot it."

    Opens in late October 2005.

    • I saw the Doom trailer with Serenity too. The entire audience laughed ass off. Have they learned nothing from Uwe Boll and the disaster that was House of the Dead [imdb.com]. There's nothing stupider than trying to make a movie look like a videogame. It's like trying to make Swordfish taste like Kobe beef.

      I wish Jackson luck but there has never been a good movie based on a game (and vice versa.)Maybe he can break the curse.

      • au contraire on the "vice versa":

        example 1: Goldeneye 007 on N64
        example 2: I heard riddick was good, havent played it yet


        alright, forget the second example, bond was good enough to break the mold. It can be done, but only by a good team that does something amazing.
      • good game baised on a movie = Chronicals of riddick, escape from butcher bay

        or does that count? I dont know
      • Let me stand up for the beating I so richly deserve.

        I will submit that there has been one good Video Game movie. And that movie is:

        (deep breath)

        Mortal Kombat.

        Think about it, every charater is introduced in like the first 15 min's with a nice clipped explination of who they are and why they're there. The story fills you in on everything you need to know as to what is actually going on. And it's fun. :) Plus, there is *one* drop of blood in a movie based off of Mortal Kombat! That's pretty funny.

        The figh
      • I wish Jackson luck but there has never been a good movie based on a game

        Wrong, there have been PLENTY of good movies made from video games:
        • Super Mario Brothers
        • Wing Commander
        • Mortal Kombat
        • Street Fighter
        • Double Dragon
  • As part of their deal with the global software giant and No. 2 video game console maker, Universal and Fox will pay Microsoft $5 million plus a percentage of movie ticket sales. The price is capped at 10 percent of domestic box office receipts.
    So if the movie makes $50 mil domestically, All Microsoft gets is $5 mil. They were negotiating for more I guess MS was shown the middle finger.
    • So if the movie makes $50 mil domestically, All Microsoft gets is $5 mil.

      Microsoft also gets a ton of hype and free promotion for their Halo sequels. You could think of the movie as a commercial for the Halo video games, a commercial that not only does Microsoft not have to pay for, they actually GET paid $5 million for it. Then somebody else spends a fortune marketing the movie, which spreads the Halo name far and wide without Microsoft spending a dime. It's free marketing! Microsoft should be paying
  • What about the Hobbit? I know it's just a rumor that he might produce it, but it doesn't look likely to happen anytime soon in any case.
    • Direct. We want him to direct it, not necessarily to produce it. Producers make money, and are only very rarely involved in the artistic "vision".
      • Having worked on some movies, I have found the importance of the producer is inversly proportional to the reputation of the director. The executive producer generally represents the money backing the movie, and if the director is a no-name, the producers will push creative decisions they think will make money. It's all part of the Hollywood system of making LOTS of mediocre movies that do decently at the box office. The studios know there is pretty much a formula to making a movie that will make money, a
  • Looks like they have a lot of work to do yet [wetaworkshop.co.nz] to get ready...
  • Will they be using open standards? I want to be able to play this thing on my own custom hardware.
    Are they going to provide the raw editable video source for free download? Heck, if I don't like something in the storyline I want to be able to edit it and recomplie my own version. Or if there's a glitch in the playback I can debug it myself.
    It's a movie about Microsoft software!!! I'm going to boycott this evil movie.
  • Is Microsoft delaying HALO 2 for the PC until it can put out this movie or is it just not planned? And will story, characters, and items in HALO 2 be in this movie? I've been waiting for quite a while to play HALO 2.
    • I think they're delaying Halo 2 on PC until it stops selling well on Xbox.

    • Is Microsoft delaying HALO 2 for the PC until it can put out this movie or is it just not planned? ... I've been waiting for quite a while to play HALO 2.

      Halo only made it to the PC because it had a legacy (first Mac, then PC, then Xbox) of promises and Bungie felt they should follow through on at least one of them (sorry, no Mac version). Halo 2 from the very start was designed as Xbox-exclusive. Neither Microsoft nor Bungie have ever even hinted at a PC release, and in fact have denied it on several

  • This is why the movie industry is going down the tubes. They're making a movie about a bloody video game, one that's basically a bug-shoot from start to end. If this is the kind of thing that gets the big bucks for movie rights, then the industry's loss of imagination has doomed them.

    • "Doomed" them, eh? No pun intended?
    • This is why the movie industry is going down the tubes. They're making a movie about a bloody video game, one that's basically a bug-shoot from start to end. If this is the kind of thing that gets the big bucks for movie rights, then the industry's loss of imagination has doomed them.

      We'll see how doomed they are when the game's fans all over the country pay money to see it. It's not just that the industry is uncreative. There's a definite market for garbage.

  • Good Precendent (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Puhase ( 911920 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @02:47PM (#13715676)
    Remember an article awhile back that described the difficulties Bungi was having in finding a studio to pick up the movie rights because of all the creative control they wanted? This is the direct result. Tried and true performance being signed on. If only all studios would take such care with their properties to demand that they have a say in its adaptation then we might not have the likes of Uwe Boll at all (Or the Super Mario movie *shudder*). I personally applaud Bungi for actually caring about their game and characters and pushing a studio to do the right thing, instead of the cheap action flop-o-rama on a somewhat shoestring budget. But of course, this is all just the optimist in my talking. And to the above person who quoted the definition of the "producer"; do you really think Peter Jackson is going to involve himself with a movie and take the hands off approach? His track record to this date would say no.

  • reality check (Score:5, Insightful)

    by circletimessquare ( 444983 ) <circletimessquare.gmail@com> on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @02:48PM (#13715687) Homepage Journal
    studio exec: "hey jackson, can we use weta to make a movie out of a video game?"

    jackson: "yeah, sure, why not, there's some free time on the servers between king kong wrapping up and us putting 'the hobbit' into preproduction"

    studio exec: "ok thanks"

    newslines scream: peter jackson, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER OF HALO THE MOVIE

    but the above exchange is about the sum total of his involvement in the movie folks, sorry

    the title "executive producer" is like getting the key to the city from the mayor: that key opens about as many real doors as the executive producer is involved in any real movie making work

    • It depends on producer, it depends on the studio, it depends on the director.

      For example, do you think John Lasseter had little involvement on all the Pixar movies he was "executive producer" for?
  • No director has been named, and the best executive producer in the world won't save a movie if Uwe Boll is helming it. So all this does is reassure us that at the very least, it will be a great looking pile of crap. :)

  • It hasn't even been 10 years... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lester67 ( 218549 ) <ratels72082@noSpAm.mypacks.net> on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @02:54PM (#13715754)
    ...do we need a remake of Starship Troopers already?
  • I don't care what you say, this'll be a great game to movie adaptation! ...Especially when the protaganist in question wears a mirror visored helemet at all time.

    ...Aw, what am I saying? We're screwed.

  • ...will it be as good as the book? :-)
  • Sam Raimi directed the near perfect Spiderman movies. Christopher Nolan directed the fabulous Batman Begins. Kevin Spacey staring in Superman Returns. And now Peter Jackson is doing Halo! What the fuck is going on? Why is it suddenly COOL to make great superhero movies?! Are that many middle-aged men living in their parents' basements to support such an art form?!
    • Nostalgia is a powerful motivation for creativity.

      The people that are in the positions to make the movies they always wanted to make were into comics at the end of the Silver Age, and the bankrollers know that the next generation of people bought even more comics than them.

      It may get harder for studios to pull that off over time as interests become increasingly diverse thanks to being able to join any little community of people on the net.
      • You nailed that one. Thanks!
        • And I even left out the bit on technology :)

          Comic movies have been made for ages but the tech was never able to compete with the expectations of the fans, no matter how much money there was.

          Now you can just render a skin tight body suit and it looks good. That's one major hurdle to suspension of disbelief there.

          The viewers were already out there, there just wasn't anything worth watching until CGI reached the right level of cost and quality.
  • I will fail to be interested by the Halo movie until they announce Samuel L. Jackson as the Sergeant

    Come on, if he'll do Snakes On A Plane, he'll do this...

  • As other insightful posters have already commented, this is, unfortunately, complete hype and an appointment with no substance to it, except POSSIBLY that he might influence decisions re: who is hired to do the actual work (see below).

    This is unfortunate, because before he made good movies, Peter Jackson made awful movies which were FUN TO WATCH. The B movie tradition is strong even in his recent blockbusters.

    Now, obviously, the Halo movie is going to be completely dreadful. If you were exp
  • At least half-life had a decent plot, albeit a thin one.
    • At least half-life had a decent plot, albeit a thin one.

      Compare HLs story line to the story line of most any action film in the last 5 years and I think you'll find that HLs story line kicks the shit out of most modern action films.

      And the story isn't over yet...
  • Peter Jackson is directing? But that would result in a good movie based on a video game!

    Doesn't he realize that's one of the signs of the apocolypse?

    Maybe I'm overreacting. It's possible that even Jackson's emmense skill can't overcome the abomination that is the video-game-to-movie genra.
    • Peter Jackson is directing? But that would result in a good movie...

      I suggest you go back and look at some of his earlier works.
      He's had his share of really good and really bad.

  • Executive Producer doesn't matter; Director does. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Movie Star Wars I-III Indiana Jones I-III LOTR I-III
    Executive Producer George Lucas George Lucas Studio Suits
    Director George Lucas Steven Spielberg Peter Jackson

    The Director is far more important than the Executive Producer. Anybody with money can execu

  • One simple request (Score:5, Insightful)

    by novakane007 ( 154885 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @03:24PM (#13716139) Homepage Journal
    Please for the love of god, don't have the chief take his helmet off. You could save a lot of money by not showing his face. This is IMHO a large part of his character. His voice can be powerful and not show his face. Much the same they did with Darth Vader.
  • From the official press release: "Jackson and Walsh will provide creative counsel on all aspects of the film via their WingNut Films banner, and Jackson's award-winning companies Weta Digital Ltd. and Weta Workshop Ltd. will provide creatures, miniatures and visual effects for the production."

    I don't think he'll just be writing checks.
  • I don't understand this obsession with turning anything sucessful into a movie. Books, TV Shows, Games. Halo was a perfectly good game and was good because it was a game. It was entertaining as a game? Why make a movie? Isn't this just simply Hollywood scrambling to milk a cash cow?

    It's worth noting that every project like this runs the risk of becoming another Super Mario Brothers fiasco.

  • If he bases it on my usual game of Halo (Score:3, Funny)

    by bitflip ( 49188 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @04:38PM (#13716853)
    It'll be a really boring movie, with the hero dying in the first ten minutes, reviving, dying, reviving, dying...with the climax being a controller thrown accompanied by a lot of cursing.

    Maybe the music will be better.

  • Kevin Bacon (Score:5, Funny)

    by nzgeek ( 232346 ) * on Tuesday October 04, 2005 @05:49PM (#13717594) Homepage Journal
    I feel it is my solemn duty to inform you that my sister has had dinner with PJ, making you, the humble Slashdot comment reader, merely four degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon. To illustrate:
    • You read my comment
    • My sister had dinner with Peter Jackson
    • PJ directed LotR, starring Sean Astin
    • Sean Astin starred in White Water Summer with Kevin Bacon

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