Halo Movie May Happen After All

spizkapa writes "On the back of the story about the Halo competition, Microsoft are reported to have reached a deal with Universal Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox to make a movie based on Halo and Halo-2. Apparently, Microsoft initially wanted $10 million plus 15% of the box office revenue but the deal was struck when the two studios teamed up and offered $5 million and 10% of initial box office revenue. Apparently, the formal announcement will take a further week after creative issues are agreed between the three parties involved."

Re:an educated guess

[the_weasel]

Don't bet on it.

Outside of Pixar, the actual use of Mac's for animation and effects is still a very small minority.

Box office revenue vs profit

[magarity]

plus 15% of the box office revenue

Notice Microsoft is smart enough to not want a cut of total profits. The history of movies is littered with the broken remains of writers who sold their movie rights for a percentage of the profits only to find that movies make no profits. It's called "Hollywood accounting". If you ever have, or ever know someone who is getting a movie deal, make sure the contract is for a cut of the box office take and not the profits.

Re:Box office revenue vs profit

[Anonymous Coward]

What's interesting is how much MS is making. 10% of box office revenues isn't all that much less than what the theatres themselves make. The 15% that they were asking for is about the same that a theatre makes in the first few weeks of a movie release. If the movie is a guaranteed hit, they'll make closer to 10%. So, when you buy an $8 ticket to this movie, 80 cents will go to MS, somewhere between 80 cents and $1.20 will go to the theatre and the remaining $6+ goes to the studio.

Good Negotiating Tactics

[MBraynard]

It's always wise to begin the negotiations by asking for too much that the other side can back away from than risk asking for too little. This was one of the more worthwhile lessons from one of the tasks in the Apprentice Season 3.

This movie is by no means a guaruanteed success. Let's take a look at the last few video game movies (Ignoring Pokemon):

• Resident Evil - Gross: $40m (Domestic), Costs: $53m.
• Resident Evil: Apocolypse - Gross: 51m (Domestic), Costs: $70m.
• Super Mario Brothers - Gross: $21m (Domestic), Costs: $48m.
• Mortal Kombat - Gross: $70m (Domestic) 52m (Overseas), Costs: $?m.
• Mortal Kombat 2- Gross: $36m (Domestic) 15m (Overseas), Costs: $?m.
• Tomb Raider: $131m (Domestic) $143m (Overseas), Costs: $115m (Production only, not marketing).
• House of the Dead - Gross: $10m (Domestic) 4m (Overseas), Costs: $22m.
• Double Dragon - Gross: $2m (Domestic), Costs: $?m.
• Final Fantasy - Gross: $32m (Domestic) 53m (Overseas), Costs: $137m.
• Street Fighter - Gross: $33m (Domestic) $66m (Overseas), Costs: $35m (production only, no marketing).
• Wing Commander - Gross: $12m (Domestic), Costs: $30m (marketing not included).

Ok, I'm sure I missed. But the one that Halo most resembles in terms of popularity and a big budget is Final Fantasy. I really enjoyed that film, and I'm unsure why it did so poorly. But from MS's point of view, they have nothing at risk financially (maybe a lousy movie - and that didn't hurt the popularity of Mario's games). Expect to see trailers for Halo3 at the start of the HAlo Movie.

They would be much better off...

[Razzak]

If they used the Marathon storyline as opposed to the Halo storyline. For those who don't know, Marathon, Marathon: Durandal, and the final Marathon were all for mac before MS bought Bungie. The first two had the best storylines ever, and were written by a different company than the 3rd and the Halo series. I really hope the first two are used for the storyline, as they are far superior in enough ambiguity to make it interesting (think: Bladerunner) and the best AI character development I've ever seen.

http://marathon.bungie.org/story/ [bungie.org]

Re:Quality Control?

[Spy Hunter]

Well, at least the script they're starting with is completely approved by Bungie. Here's what Frankie (of bungie.net "weekly what's update" fame) has to say about it:

Moviegoers ask,
Have you read the Halo movie script?

I've read an early draft of the script, and it rules. I heart Alex Garland's stuff anyway, from The Tesseract to 28 Days Later. Garland also wrote the script for an upcoming Sci-Fi flick, Sunshine, which you can read more about here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448134/ [imdb.com]

Best thing about Alex, apart from his ability to type awesomeness, is that he's actually a Halo fan, and he really, really gets it.

link [bungie.net]

So they've got a script written by a Halo fan who also happens to be an accomplished Hollywood screenwriter, and Bungie likes it. Sounds like they could be on the right track. I'm not familiar with Alex Garland's work myself.

Re:Quality Control?

[mikael]

There was a slashdot article (lost in the depths of time) which announced that Hollywood movie makers/cartoon story writers had derived the ten crucial elements of a hit movie. These included the hero, the hero's mentor, his nemesis, his woman of desire, his sidekicks, the quest, the first failure/turning back, the final fight, the victory and the happy ending.

Top Gun, Superman, Star Wars are examples of such movies.

Many of the video games don't really have these elements, so even with the best special effects/actors they wouldn't work. And if you do try and add these elements, they would alienate the fans of the original game.

If you were to try and convert 'nethack' into a movie, you already have the hero (the player), the sidekick (pet cat/dog), the nemesis (Wizard of Yendor), the mentor (the quest level), first failure (not having enough experience levels).
The victory is a bit tricky since the Wizard of Yendor can keep coming back, and you would need a princess level for the "woman of desire" part, and I'm not sure how exactly you could compress exploring 20 levels of mazes and killing thousands of wild creatures into a 90 minute movie, apart from just using the distinctive levels (Asmodeus, Jubilex, the abandoned shops, and the elemental/spiritual planes). But the happy ending would be offering the Amulet of Yendor at the correct location.

Re:I don't know what to say

[Jasin Natael]

You could take a different slant. I know a lot of people (a younger crowd, for sure) that hadn't been exposed to Asimov until this. As far as movies go, it almost certainly drew more people to read his work than Contact. You got to watch a fun action-blockbuster movie with cool visuals, and someone else got exposed to Isaac Asimov's name and hints of his ideas for the first time. And Asimov's estate made some money.

If it had actually been craptastic (as I'm sure many people here feel) then I could see some outrage over linking the Asimov name with the film. But as it stands, it wasn't really bad publicity for one of your favorite authors, just someone making a good movie and playing fast-and-loose with the words "based on".

Now, if you're upset that this precludes a real I, Robot movie that is actually based on the book, I'll join you in that sentiment. But, given how many younger sci-fi fans have yet to read Asimov's books, and that the movie was probably positive in a mindshare context for most people, I'll contend that it wasn't such a dumb move after all.

On Topic: Video Game movies are not in the same bucket. You can't add to a video game's experience, you can only take away. What games lack in storyline depth or emotional context, they make up for with engaging gameplay and (often) social gaming aspects. Game scenarios don't work well for tacking on drama or subterfuge, and so they don't work well on the big screen. Period. Hollywood, can you prove me wrong?

Jasin Natael

Re:Plot spoiler....

[Matrix5353]

And right after that, you realize that the Master Chief wasn't a marine. He was a NCO, a petty officer. Master chief is the highest rank an enlisted man can reach in the Navy, and it's an important position of leadership. Next time, you might want to do your research, which you can here. [military-quotes.com]