'Halo' Canceled at Paramount+ After Two Seasons (hollywoodreporter.com) 42
Master Chief has fought his last battle at Paramount+. The streamer has canceled its video game adaptation Halo after two seasons. The show originally debuted in 2022. From a report: The series, based on the Xbox franchise and starring Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief John-117, finished its second season in March. "We are extremely proud of this ambitious series and would like to thank our partners at Xbox, 343 Industries and Amblin Television, along with showrunner and executive producer David Wiener, his fellow executive producers, the entire cast led by Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief and the amazing crew for all their outstanding work," Paramount+ said in a statement. "We wish everyone the best going forward."
Sources say the show's producers -- Amblin, Xbox and 343 Industries -- will look to land the series at another outlet for a third season. Paramount+ is said to be supportive of a possible move. "We deeply appreciate the millions of fans who propelled the Halo series to be a global success, and we remain committed to broadening the Halo universe in different ways in the future," reads a statement from 343 Industries. "We are grateful to Amblin and Paramount for their partnership in bringing our expansive sci-fi universe to viewers around the world."
Sources say the show's producers -- Amblin, Xbox and 343 Industries -- will look to land the series at another outlet for a third season. Paramount+ is said to be supportive of a possible move. "We deeply appreciate the millions of fans who propelled the Halo series to be a global success, and we remain committed to broadening the Halo universe in different ways in the future," reads a statement from 343 Industries. "We are grateful to Amblin and Paramount for their partnership in bringing our expansive sci-fi universe to viewers around the world."
The rest of the announcement (Score:5, Insightful)
"On a related note, we will be removing subscribers' access to all existing episodes and destroying the originals so we can declare it as a tax loss."
Re:The rest of the announcement (Score:4, Insightful)
If you like something that you accessed via streaming, pirate a copy immediately. It's the only way it can't be taken away from you.
Re: (Score:3)
If you like something that you accessed via streaming, pirate a copy immediately. It's the only way it can't be taken away from you.
In total fairness to Paramount, they're about the only streaming service that has consistently *also* released DVD/Blu-Ray copies of just about everything they have on the service, and they're also the most consistent about releasing episodes on the iTunes Store.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure - but even then, pirate/rip for backup. Because I doubt in 20 years Paramount+ will replace a scratched disk free of charge.
Re: The rest of the announcement (Score:3)
Why should they replace a scratched disc free of charge, unless you can prove itâ(TM)s because of a manufacturing flaw? And even then, 20 years would be beyond the limits of most countryâ(TM)s consumer laws. Thatâ(TM)s like expecting Apple to replace a cracked phone screen for free.
Re: (Score:2)
My point went so far over your head you must be deep in an abandoned mine somewhere.
If you buy something - "a movie" - and you want to keep it, you need it in a format that can't be revoked and isn't subject to failure. The closest we have to that right now is a ripped file you can store in multiple locations.
Then the only loss you have to deal with is if standards change enough that the old formats are becoming unplayable and you need to do a conversion... you'll introduce some new artifacts during the pr
Re: (Score:2)
All the disc formats can be ripped.
Plus, with the loss of piracy sites, all the rips are low quality re-encoded crap. It's hard to find untouched rips anymore. (and if you're saying "they're so big" 100GB is nothing in a world of 22TB hard drives).
Re: (Score:2)
Or do it the legal way. Halo is available on physical media for legitimate offline viewing. Both seasons. You can get it in DVD, Blu-Ray or UHD Blu-Ray.
Re: (Score:2)
Or buy the physical discs!
Re: (Score:1)
"On a related note, we will be removing subscribers' access to all existing episodes and destroying the originals so we can declare it as a tax loss."
Don't be so cynical. Removing access and destroying all copies is a service to the world; one less abomination of a lore-shitting-on show out there. Forget tax write off, these people should be knighted.
Re: (Score:2)
Hah! I was modded down, I'm genuinely surprised there were two people who enjoyed the show, let alone people with mod points. Live and learn.
When promises fall short (Score:2)
Mixed bag (Score:2)
If you can trust random people on the Internet not to be dedicated shit-posters... it seems people who were fans of the games/books/whatever else were angry that this was a case of "we took the names and ignored the canon".
I get that, and I think writers who do that should be thrown at the back of the unemployment line. There was no real need for this to be 'Halo', no need to piss off a group of existing fans.... But I've never played the games or read the books, and the response from people like me was ge
Re: Mixed bag (Score:1)
So. . . I do not disagree with you in general. Iâ(TM)m glad you liked it. It was't that bad, and many people did.
But the problem with this line of thinking is that you and the people like youâ"the newcomers to the seriesâ"are NOT what will sustain it (and similar efforts). Halo wasn't ever going to sweep the world like Squid Game. They NEED to please the people who grew up with the source material, and THOSE people don't want to see someone else's re-interpretation. There is no "re"-interpre
Re: (Score:2)
I also have never played the game or read the books, but enjoyed the series -- with the same season notes as you. If I remember correctly, I also enjoyed the mini-series, "Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn" on Amazon, which I saw way before and jogged my interest in this Halo series.
Re: Mixed bag (Score:2)
I also have never played the game or read the books
You needn't, the show bears almost no similarity to the books and takes place before the games anyway (though it still manages to contradict quite a few plot points anyway). I'm not saying it's a bad show, nor a great one, but killing off a character whose death is quite a big thing in the game didn't make a lot of sense to me. The character they added while far from perfect does serve a purpose.
Re: (Score:2)
or include a provision for 1-2 additional episodes on cancellation/non-renewal to assure the audience that they won't be left on the cliff.
Cancelled? (Score:3)
"We deeply appreciate the millions of fans who propelled the Halo series to be a global success..."
If it is such a global success why the hell would they cancel it? Did they hire a new CEO who felt a sudden and uncontrollable urge to prove that he could make counterproductive decisions?
Re:Cancelled? (Score:4, Interesting)
Paramount is in financial trouble and is being bought by SkyDance. Cutting an expensive show like Halo comes as no surprise. When I heard the news, I thought.. well, at least that's one series I don't need to think about watching anymore, and also wasnt at all surprised.
Re: (Score:2)
Paramount is in financial trouble and is being bought by SkyDance.
Does SkyDance have have anything that would compete with Halo and they would favor over the latter?
Re: (Score:2)
I managed to get through season 1, with it's early 2000s video game quality dialogue, but gave up on season 2.
It just never figured out what it was supposed to be. What little there was beyond the "macho man with gun" stuff was weak and derivative. How many times have we seen the engineered soldier identity crisis, but not so severe we can't still have some good action scenes, routine?
Re: (Score:2)
You made it further than me. The first couple of episodes were comedic along with the character design choices.
Re: (Score:2)
"We deeply appreciate the millions of fans who propelled the Halo series to be a global success..."
If it is such a global success why the hell would they cancel it?
Successful doesn't necessarily mean profitable, or profitable enough.
Re: (Score:2)
"We deeply appreciate the millions of fans who propelled the Halo series to be a global success..."
If it is such a global success why the hell would they cancel it? Did they hire a new CEO who felt a sudden and uncontrollable urge to prove that he could make counterproductive decisions?
Because it wasn't that good and "global success" is just market speak.
Had they not ordered the 2nd season before the first aired they wouldn't have paid for that.
I've watched Halo and I like kitchy Sci-Fi series (Farscape, Earth Final Conflict, et al.) so will look past a few flaws, Halo started our OK and rapidly deteriorated into terribad talking and crying episodes (the kind of TWD episodes you skip most of). I'm not surprised to see it go and I wanted to like it.
Because it didn't fit the Conservative narative... (Score:1)
Keep the helmet on (Score:3)
Sh/could've David Prowsed it with a voice actor, preferably someone unknown.
Re: Keep the helmet on (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah when I heard how much they had MC without his helmet I found it odd and feels like a classic case of the studio and showrunners having no faith in the audience and really a lack of faith on their actor as well. Mandalorian showed it can work and with a good actor and director an audience can connect with a helmetted character.
Dredd 2012 also proves this point as Karl Urban is really great in that and he understand it the helmet is part of the character. But I suppose that was a bomb at the box offic
Re: (Score:2)
>Dredd 2012 also proves this point as Karl Urban is really great in that and he understand it the helmet is part of the character. But I suppose that was a bomb at the box office so studios are gonna take the wrong lesson.
I don't get that... Dredd 2012 is the movie that showed me Urban was a true professional actor. He's good at a minimum in everything he does. And the movie was perfectly done, a day in the life of Dredd. I could have taken a few sequels of that.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah I would love a sequel or I think Dredd is the type of thing that is really primed for a TV series, really interesting universe to tell stories in.
I do appreciate that Urban is playing Johnny Cage in the next Mortal Kombat movie though, that should be fun.
Re: (Score:2)
Dredd is hands down one of the best comic book movies I've ever seen. I understand it's a bit graphic in terms of violence for some but for the life of me I dont understand how it takes a back seat to the vast majority of what Disney has done.
Re: (Score:2)
Distribution rights (Score:2)
I binged watched the first series on a Qantas flight to Australia, and enjoyed. My wife wonâ(TM)t watch it and Iâ(TM)m not going to take out a Paramount+ subscription to watch something once in a while when my wife is out. They should go old school and license this to traditional outlets like the BBC. This model where every content creator becomes a distributor with their own platform is deeply flawed, as theyâ(TM)re finding out.
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, but you're a minority there. When the production costs outweigh the return it makes no sense from a business perspective.
You're assuming that other platforms will want to license such garbage. Although, the BBC might be one of the few examples of one that would, given the garbage that they've been pushing out lately.
Re: (Score:2)
>When the production costs outweigh the return it makes no sense from a business perspective.
Actually, when the potential profits are less than could be had by directing production resources elsewhere, it makes no sense from a business perspective.
>You're assuming that other platforms will want to license such garbage
Why are you even in a discussion about the show if it's so bad? Do you lack self-control and you hate-watched it or something and now can't get over it?
Good (Score:2)
“We didn’t look at the game. We didn’t talk about the game. We talked about the characters and the world"
This was their attitude coming to the show. They not only ignore the excellent story of existing Halo games, they also did not even take advantage of 30+ books written by many authors in the franchise.
Yes, Halo is a "video game", but story was its high selling point. People loved the lore and the characters. Master Chief was iconic for his demeanor, and no, he did not take off his helme
Re: (Score:2)
So Red vs Blue is better to watch?
Lol good- (Score:2)
Fuck these race-swapping lore destroying shitters
"But muh other universe"
Why even make it then, for real. I am glad it was a failure and was canceled, but IMAGINE if the entire purpose of the casting wasn't to shit on white people and IMAGINE if the entire purpose of the story wasn't to shit on the fans.
Anyway I am sure they will just make it again but even worse in a few years.