After 17 Years and 265 Scripts, Microsoft Finally Turns 'Halo' Into a $90M TV Show on Paramount+ (variety.com) 55
Variety takes a long look at Halo, the new nine-episode TV show on Paramount+ adapting "Microsoft's crown jewel Xbox franchise":
When the show premieres on March 24, it will be the culmination of 17 years of false starts and dogged striving, including a Peter Jackson-produced feature film that fell apart in the 2000s, more than six years of development by Amblin Television in the 2010s, and a pandemic-split production in Hungary for the nine-episode first season that lasted nearly two years....
On June 6, 2005, in a stunt that instantly became the stuff of Hollywood legend, Microsoft sent a small platoon of actors dressed in full Master Chief armor to the major film studios (other than Sony Pictures, naturally). They were armed with a "Halo" screenplay written by Alex Garland and take-it-or-leave-it deal terms heavily weighted in the company's favor. The result was a movie co-financed by Universal and 20th Century Fox and produced by Peter Jackson, who hired up-and-coming director Neill Blomkamp to make his feature debut with the film. According to Jamie Russell's book "Generation Xbox: How Video Games Invaded Hollywood," Microsoft was an uneasy and at times overbearing creative partner, and the project ultimately fell apart in October 2006. (Blomkamp and Jackson instead made 2009's "District 9," which was nominated for four Oscars, including best picture.)
By 2011, Microsoft had parted ways with Halo's original developer, Bungie, and created an in-house studio, 343 Industries, to keep the franchise alive. As part of that effort, veteran Microsoft executive Kiki Wolfkill began exploring anew how to expand the game into a live-action adaptation — or, in Wolfkill's words, "linear entertainment...." Don Mattrick, then the head of Microsoft's Xbox unit, called his friend Steven Spielberg, himself a passionate gamer and a Halo fan. Soon after, 343's executives found themselves pitching Amblin Television presidents Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank. "They asked for permission to get in before we came into the room, and they covered a large conference table with the canon of Halo," says Falvey. That canon — a vast science fiction saga that spans hundreds of millennia and involves ancient aliens who created colossal, ring-shaped structures called the Halo Array — comes as much from dozens of tie-in novels, comic books and exhaustive guides and encyclopedias as from the games themselves. "It was aisles deep," Falvey recalls. "It was incredible."
Everyone who spoke with Variety, actually, cited Halo's expansive mythology as the factor that differentiated the series from other video game fare and made it so attractive as source material for event-size television.... [W]hen Kyle Killen ("Lone Star") came on board as showrunner in 2018, he hit upon a shrewd narrative path that embraces the video game DNA: Master Chief starts as a complete cypher, engineered to be so devoid of individuality that he literally has no sense of taste, and the rest of the season slowly fills out the void. "We're going to tell a story about a man discovering his own humanity," says Kane, who joined the show as co-showrunner in 2019. "In so doing, he's invited the audience to discover that guy's humanity too."
Eventually, Levine says, "we got the script to the place where we said, 'You know, this is a deep dive into character. What are the costs of turning human beings into killing machines...?'"
Kane estimates he wrote upwards of 265 drafts of the first nine episodes, balancing everything from the needs of the expansive production to story notes from 343 and Spielberg to the desire to fold in as much from the Halo mythology as possible.
The article calls the show the strong argument yet from Paramount+ "that it belongs at the big kids table with Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video and HBO Max."
The article notes Paramount+ already has five ongoing Star Trek series (including Discovery and Picard). And Variety also reported earlier that South Park will stream exclusively on Paramount+ starting in 2025, joining the streaming service's 14 exclusive South Park "specials" (hour-long episodes like 2021's "South Park: Post COVID").
On June 6, 2005, in a stunt that instantly became the stuff of Hollywood legend, Microsoft sent a small platoon of actors dressed in full Master Chief armor to the major film studios (other than Sony Pictures, naturally). They were armed with a "Halo" screenplay written by Alex Garland and take-it-or-leave-it deal terms heavily weighted in the company's favor. The result was a movie co-financed by Universal and 20th Century Fox and produced by Peter Jackson, who hired up-and-coming director Neill Blomkamp to make his feature debut with the film. According to Jamie Russell's book "Generation Xbox: How Video Games Invaded Hollywood," Microsoft was an uneasy and at times overbearing creative partner, and the project ultimately fell apart in October 2006. (Blomkamp and Jackson instead made 2009's "District 9," which was nominated for four Oscars, including best picture.)
By 2011, Microsoft had parted ways with Halo's original developer, Bungie, and created an in-house studio, 343 Industries, to keep the franchise alive. As part of that effort, veteran Microsoft executive Kiki Wolfkill began exploring anew how to expand the game into a live-action adaptation — or, in Wolfkill's words, "linear entertainment...." Don Mattrick, then the head of Microsoft's Xbox unit, called his friend Steven Spielberg, himself a passionate gamer and a Halo fan. Soon after, 343's executives found themselves pitching Amblin Television presidents Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank. "They asked for permission to get in before we came into the room, and they covered a large conference table with the canon of Halo," says Falvey. That canon — a vast science fiction saga that spans hundreds of millennia and involves ancient aliens who created colossal, ring-shaped structures called the Halo Array — comes as much from dozens of tie-in novels, comic books and exhaustive guides and encyclopedias as from the games themselves. "It was aisles deep," Falvey recalls. "It was incredible."
Everyone who spoke with Variety, actually, cited Halo's expansive mythology as the factor that differentiated the series from other video game fare and made it so attractive as source material for event-size television.... [W]hen Kyle Killen ("Lone Star") came on board as showrunner in 2018, he hit upon a shrewd narrative path that embraces the video game DNA: Master Chief starts as a complete cypher, engineered to be so devoid of individuality that he literally has no sense of taste, and the rest of the season slowly fills out the void. "We're going to tell a story about a man discovering his own humanity," says Kane, who joined the show as co-showrunner in 2019. "In so doing, he's invited the audience to discover that guy's humanity too."
Eventually, Levine says, "we got the script to the place where we said, 'You know, this is a deep dive into character. What are the costs of turning human beings into killing machines...?'"
Kane estimates he wrote upwards of 265 drafts of the first nine episodes, balancing everything from the needs of the expansive production to story notes from 343 and Spielberg to the desire to fold in as much from the Halo mythology as possible.
The article calls the show the strong argument yet from Paramount+ "that it belongs at the big kids table with Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video and HBO Max."
The article notes Paramount+ already has five ongoing Star Trek series (including Discovery and Picard). And Variety also reported earlier that South Park will stream exclusively on Paramount+ starting in 2025, joining the streaming service's 14 exclusive South Park "specials" (hour-long episodes like 2021's "South Park: Post COVID").
I'm sure people will watch it (Score:2)
But I just don't get it. A video game is better than a TV series any time, unless you can't work even an assistive controller. Whenever I watch something that looks like a video game, I immediately get annoyed that I can't control it.
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I'm not sure if Halo is something that would translate well to a TV show though. I haven't kept up with the series since the third game in the franchise, but the lore seemed to already be getting quite tortured and really wasn't something that was e
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there are plenty of games that are awful as games themselves (unless you also have an enjoyment from playing terrible games) that I think would be far less enjoyable than a top tier TV show or film.
There are no bad Halo games, only some boring parts of some good games... mostly the first one, with the land of [nigh-]identical rooms and hallways. But I'll bet this show will be bad.
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mostly the first one, with the land of [nigh-]identical rooms and hallways.
In other words, an updated version of, "You are in a twisty maze of passageways, all alike."
Re: I'm sure people will watch it (Score:1)
The first one was bad: I completed it in under a week. Thank goodness it was a rental from Blockbuster and I didn't waste more money on it.
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The first one was bad: I completed it in under a week.
Oh noes, only a week of entertainment for $50? Not that you paid that, but seriously. But anyway, after the single player there was still the multiplayer, which was great. Not groundbreaking in the first title, but very well done.
Re: I'm sure people will watch it (Score:2)
Over-hyped and unimaginative plagiarism of something had been done better several times before with better gameplay. Bigger graphics and production can't cover for lack of gameplay. Gaming going down the same path as Hollywood.
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Over-hyped and unimaginative plagiarism of something had been done better several times before with better gameplay.
Over-hyped, yes. Unimaginative? It had numerous differences. Notably it had a lot more worldbuilding than most FPSes. Also frankly, "done better" is nonsense. Halo was extremely polished, and the best console FPS by far at the time.
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There are no bad Halo games, only some boring parts of some good games... mostly the first one, with the land of [nigh-]identical rooms and hallways. But I'll bet this show will be bad.
Well, I found that to be pretty bad game design and I stopped playing in that repetitive mess. Never touched another Halo game after that. Fool me once...
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Video games are rather quasi-linear: there's drop points, progress points, end-goals, and metrics along the way. And an entire billion-dollar industry of cosmetics surrounding those experiences but they're essentially all the same.
Movies and TV series are similarly quasi-linear, but with creative writing and scene development, a different story is told/unfolds. The most sophisticated series afford the viewers to u
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So they're different because they're both quasi-linear?
They're different because one is more active than the other.
Movies have been getting more and more like video games in general, but the animated ones (that are obviously animated, not the ones which just have some SFX) just seem like a big dumb cutscene now.
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They're both forms of entertainment, and arguably both quasi-linear, but the separating factors are not about "movies have been getting more like video games" (HUH?!). Rather, the tv shows and movies end up covering different perspec
Only for people who want to be engaged. (Score:2)
Video games are great when you want to exercise your brain, actively participate in the challenge, and maybe even be challenged. Sure.
Some people revile this and only do it when they are paid. What they want from entertainment is to expend no more effort than it takes to keep their eyes open, and let someone else's effort guide them through a life that is much more interesting than their own. They get all the glory, with none of the risk, pain, or effort. It's a total win!
(Judgmental attitude aside, bot
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Why THAT video game & no Bioshock or Dead Spac (Score:1)
Halo? Master Chief is cool, but the enemies are chil
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It is movie people with no ideas trying to stay relevant and MS trying to be a bit less massively uncool. You know, basically an hour-long AD.
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This was why the final battle in Inception annoyed me so much. Also, it's why John Wick annoys me. It's just a bunch of cut scenes stitched together by FPS fights. Some of them are not even very good.
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For me it's the opposite.
With a lot of games, the interactivity doesn't really add much to the experience anymore, just makes it more tedious.
So for a few games like Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us, Life Is Strange, I just watched the playthroughs on Youtube while doing other stuff on another screen.
huh (Score:2)
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Yeah, that was really good. So good that they probably shouldn't have attempted this remake.
Master Chief is human? (Score:2)
I was under the impression Master Chief was an android. A really awesome one, but still technically not human. So is he really a human in a battle suit?
Either way worked for the video game and well, just not that into the series to go beyond the games.
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Master Chief could be a special case, but SPARTANs are cyborgs [wikipedia.org], not androids. MC's eyes are shown briefly [youtu.be] if you beat Halo 4 on Legendary, although I suppose that doesn't prove he's not an android.
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I always thought of him as a human cyborg, like the other Spartans, but more effective due to something akin to attachment disorder [wikipedia.org], making him an unsympathetic and uninhibited killer who is nonetheless obedient and loyal. I understood part of the controversy around Halsey and her methods was precisely this: she recruited mentally damaged and dangerous children to her program and trained them in a way that didn't heal their wounds so much as capitalized upon them to make them into perfect soldiers (which p
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Ahh okay. Makes sense. I don't actually remember if I even beat the first Halo, let alone the next 3. They were fun games but there was so many other more interesting games to play back then.
Original Script was Unoriginal (Score:1)
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Halo's time is over (Score:1)
Not the original voice actor (Score:1)
This is a hack production already
That's a lot of scripts (Score:2)
Re: Probably unwatchable (Score:2)
It will flop and fail... (Score:3)
It is no longer a story about Master Chief. Instead, it is the story of some random girl, who will probably become the new Master Chief, in the spirit of Rey. The showrunners have zero (zee r'oh!) credits to their names and no idea what they are doing. I'm guessing they hired after-school children's drama writers, like they've done with the most recent incarnation of Dr. Who.
I'm so tired of franchises being handed over to neophytes. Nothing good ever comes out of it.
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It is no longer a story about Master Chief. Instead, it is the story of some random girl, who will probably become the new Master Chief, in the spirit of Rey. The showrunners have zero (zee r'oh!) credits to their names and no idea what they are doing. I'm guessing they hired after-school children's drama writers, like they've done with the most recent incarnation of Dr. Who.
I'm so tired of franchises being handed over to neophytes. Nothing good ever comes out of it.
One of the most worrying things I read was an interview with the people making the show. They admit they didn't refer to the story or the game (and haven't played it) and will use this as a chance to write their own time etc.
Essentially, they plan to use the games name to push a show of their own creation with very little to do with the games lore/story.
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What I don't gut: Is this actually a recipe for success? I mean I know the Star Wars Movies raked in lots of cash but isn't the meme about Star Wars that the merchandise made so much more money than the movies ever did? Hell, that's in Spaceballs.
From what I understand the merch for the latest Star wars movies sold like dog turds...
So yeah, this garbage fuckery of established franchises doesn't necessarily fail at the box office but I gotta wonder what these CEOs are thinking when they keep leaving wads of
Not good journalism (Score:2)
Has no ties to the game stories and not about MC (Score:3)
Why even mention the game when this TV series has nothing to do with it other than existing in the same franchise. It's about a MC who lost his memory, and tries to find himself while his female non-sidekick character rebels against a fascist "United Nations" government. This is what the critic reviews are pretty much saying.
I could be wrong, but this sounds like cookie-cutter woke garbage. When has Halo's human government ever been outlined as fascist and oppressive? I can't wait to see what sexism they inject from the antagonist - even though the world of Halo has never had this problem before. I'm hoping that this isn't what the series amounts to, but....
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> When has Halo's human government ever been outlined as fascist and oppressive?
Did you overlook the original reason the Spartan IIs were created, and who were the primary recruiting source for their successors, the Spartan IIIs?
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And what game focuses on all of that? The answer is none. People enjoy Halo for the sci-fi and alien aspects. That's why it's popular. Now instead of doing something with that, they're focusing on a facist human government that nobody cares about. Who is this series made for, because it wasn't made for the fans of the Halo games? This is why it is going to bomb and why it has received subpar ratings by critics. It's going to be a disappointment for the vast majority.
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Maybe clunky at first, but I’ll give it time (Score:1)
Not optimistic (Score:2)
The early reviews are not good. Both critic ones and audience screeners have given mixed scores. (About 60/100 average). That is really concerning. Since "flawed gems" tend to be loved by at least one of them, critics, or audience.
The main concern seems to be lack of connection to actual Halo lore. The series have supporting books, encyclopedia, anime, websites and whatnot making it a coherent universe. The showrunners here famously threw those out of the window, and just decided to their own thing.
And then
Halo Showrunner Says "We Didn’t Look At The (Score:2)
Which makes one wonder, who is the show for exactly?
I'll never understand why Hollywood licenses books & games, if the goal is to make use of the existing audience why does it make sense to completely twist the source? That isn't going to endear your work to existing fans, so the target audience of the Halo show is people who never played the game? Surely it would be cheaper to not license an IP and write your own shit.
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I'll never understand why Hollywood licenses books & games, if the goal is to make use of the existing audience why does it make sense to completely twist the source?
Hollywood seems to think the Internet doesn't exist. They used to license things because fans couldn't talk to each other very quickly, so word of mouth took weeks to spread, by which time it was too late; everybody who loved the licensed title had bought a ticket and gone to see it, finding out only then that Hollywood had ignored the source material and just suckered them in with the name. Those days are over but Hollywood thinks the formula should still work.
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It was dog shit.
Oh Good! (Score:2)
I don't have Paramount+ and don't plan on every getting it. Non-crisis averted.
265 - I guess that is overflow exception (Score:2)