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Halo Movie Deal Moves Closer 53

Posted by Zonk from the keep-bungie-in-the-driver's-seat dept.
Universal and Fox are apparently close to coming up with a deal Microsoft is happy with for the in-the-works Halo film. Gamespot reports that the two movie studios will cofinance the hugely expensive movie title. From the article: "while Universal and Fox's offer is now the only game in town, Microsoft is still unsure if it wants to play ball. Variety and the Times say the agreement is held up on two fronts. First, the two studios requested that Microsoft relinquish its demands and that the Halo movie strictly follow a Bungie-penned "bible," which would ensure that it would not deviate from the Halo mythos or conflict with "sequels" to the game (i.e. Halo 3). The second reported sticking point was Microsoft's insistence that principal shooting begin as soon as possible, possibly as early as this fall."
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Halo Movie Deal Moves Closer More

Halo Movie Deal Moves Closer

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  • So it's still a tangled mess that may or may not happen? How is that closer?
  • ... are all jumping into the movie scene after Mel Gibson's movie. When will it end?
  • after all the vast majority of movies based on video games haven't been all that great, so i'm doubtful this one would be much better if it ever gets off the ground...

  • ugh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gogo0 ( 877020 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @03:52PM (#12783984)
    Does anyone else see this movie as a $75Mil+ Halo3 commercial meant almost solely to steal thunder from the PS3 and Rev's launches?
    Am I the only one who finds that abso-fucking-lutely rediculous?

    • Re:ugh (Score:2, Insightful)

      by jclast ( 888957 )

      It could be a legitimate attempt at a multimedia franchise. There are already novels being published and toys being produces. I don't know if they're canon, but I'm sure they're selling.

      • Novels are absolutely canon. The toys are as well, although they don't add anything to the story. On an aside, the novels (all 3 of them: Fall of Reach, The Flood, First Strike) are fantastic, and well worth reading.

        • I figure I'll play the games first. I still don't own an XBox, but the price ought to fall quickly after the 360 launches. Then I'll have cheap games to play for a long time.

    • not really. i see it the same as the final fantasy movie. intersting story and state-of-the-art cg.
      • "not really. i see it the same as the final fantasy movie. intersting story and state-of-the-art cg."

        Have you ever listened to the commentary tracks for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within?

        The animation team spends the entire session badmouthing the studio for rewriting the script 20 to 30 times, forcing them to constantly rework the sequences, drop them, add them, pick up dropped ones, etc (case in point, the opening opening sequence was one of the first ones created (Aki floating in her craft), the dire
        • interesting. i only saw it in the theater. do any of the games have that much in common? other than mechanics and charater archtypes?

          • Cid, chocobos, airships, and some of the summons seem to be the only real running themes.

            However, some of the universes are definitely related.

            • FFX -> FFX-2 // duh
            • FFX-2 -> FFVII // Shinra is a member of the Gullwings and I seem to remember reading an interview stating that the 2 happen in the same universe.
            • FFVII -> FFVII: Advent Children // Continuation of the FFVII story.
            • FFVII -> FFVII: Dirge of Cerberus // Seems to be a non-RPG gaiden featuring Vincent.
            • FFVII -> FFT // You can find C
    • >Does anyone else see this movie as a $75Mil+ Halo3 commercial meant almost solely to steal thunder from the PS3 and Rev's launches?

      *cough*Pokemon*cough*
    • I don't think it's ridiculous, it's superb marketing. I called it on the last article. A Halo3 movie timed to come out when Halo3 launches. Maybe even the same day. Previously unimaginable levels of hype.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Microsoft should... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by TEMM ( 731243 )
    not give in to the studios, Bungies bible is probably the only thing keeping a Halo movie from being made into a huge piece of crap. Game movies flop usually becase they deviate too far from the games storyline and universe. IE not using the same main characters, or changing the main characters, or completely changing the "topic" of the movie. If microsoft does one thing right it should be making sure that bungie gets the final say in how the movie plays out.
    • I agree 100%. Most movies based on games are bad because they stray to far from the games we know and love. (Take Final Fantasy for example). That "bible" that MS and Bungie have created is what will keep this movie true to the games. Bungie is a smart group and they wont let anyone destroy their franchise if they can help it. I hope that MS stands firm and forces the studio to stick to their "bible".
      • Final Fantasy didn't stray away from the games at all. Just add an identity crisis and a mysterious villain and you basically would've gotten Final Fantasy 7 (though the spirits sub-plot was more reminiscent of FF4).

        Super Mario Brothers is a much better example of the movie not much resembling the game.

        Rob
    • I agree. The worst thing that could happen to this movie would be like making a Doom movie without Mars and hell-spawned Demons. I'm not looking forward to Doom, but I want to look forward to this.

  • Inaccurate article text (Score:3, Informative)

    by Matchstick ( 94940 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @04:01PM (#12784099)
    The GameSpot article has a factual error as a result of a typo:

    First, the two studios requested that Microsoft relinquish its demands and that the Halo movie strictly follow a Bungie-penned "bible,"

    The "bible" demand comes from Microsoft, not from the studios. One reference: http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?categ ory=0&id=31144 [scifi.com]
    • Okay, everyone had a enough common sense to figure it out. I think you need to get a new English parser if you an 'and' can completly throw you off. Especially if you read the last article.

  • This is why Hollywood pisses me off.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jtheletter ( 686279 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @04:21PM (#12784327)
    Here you have M$ and Bungie making what amounts to a reasonable request that the studios not deviate from the universe of the game when creating the Halo movie. Sure, this might mean a larger effects or set budget, or perhaps it means the editing process needs to be a little more careful about what they cut, or that some self-sure studio writer can't use the hyper-excellent catch phrase for the Chief to say and be sound-bited to death in previews. But it seems to me that the studio is getting a lot more in return by respecting this caveat. What Bungie has is an established title and storyline in a well-defined universe, and along with that are hundreds of thousands* of devoted fans who already know the backstory of the games, and thousands more who feel they 'own' part of that universe from literally perticipating in it via the I Love Bees viral marketing adventure. This means that the only thing the studios could possibly do by deviating from Bungie's bible is to screw it up and alienate or tick off a ready-made fan-base for the film.

    Think about it, there are tons of gamers salivating over this film I'm sure. But what is going to happen when reviews, leaked scripts, etc start coming out and they find that perhaps major parts of the story they know and love have been changed, and - given the studios' track records - probably for the worse? They're going to snub the film, that's what. Maybe not enough to make it tank, but probably a sizable number will choose to wait for the DVD, or not see it all. We geeks are extremely pedantic, we love details, it's what we do. Mucking about with 'our' culture is only insulting to us, and we recognize and resent it.

    I know it takes more than just the /. crowd to make money for a film, and we do overinflate our importance, after all you need the public at large to like the film as well to be truly successful. But I think that with Halo, being as well defined and straightforward a story/universe as it is, there shouldn't be any need to alter it to dumb it down (or up) for the masses. Hollywood just wants to maintain its monopoly of culture and cater to the lowest common denominator. To paraphrase Chris Rock in another bad movie: 'We [the studios] tried that, and we got damn rich doing it. But maybe now it's time to try a different way.' After all what's the worse that could happen? It's not like the Bungie version of the film could be any worse than the Mario Bros Movie [imdb.com]. Right? God I hope not.

    * re: hundreds of thousands of fans - I have no idea what the number is but it's got to be big. maybe millions? I dunno, I just pulled a number out of my butt, let it go already.

  • Why not just pull a Square and do it themselves? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Alzheimers ( 467217 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @04:25PM (#12784375)
    At this point, if Microsoft is so confident that the movie would succeed should it be made, why don't they just open their own studio and make it themselves? If Halo: The Movie does do well, who knows what other Microsoft franchises might get sent to the big screen?

    Flight Simulator: in IMAX 3D!
  • The second reported sticking point was Microsoft's insistence that principal shooting begin as soon as possible, possibly as early as this fall. According to Variety, Universal and Fox will only "promise simply to get the pic into theaters by 2007 at the latest."

    Microsoft always wants to rush everything and only ends up with a crappy product in the end. I hope whatever company decides to make the film takes their time and makes it worth seeing.

    In unrelated news, I bet that if the said company does

    • Microsoft always wants to rush everything and only ends up with a crappy product in the end. I hope whatever company decides to make the film takes their time and makes it worth seeing.

      Thinking about this, it may be the movie that makes George Lucas' vision of electronic distribution of digital movies to theatres the industry standard, because that's the only way that Microsoft's going to be able to distribute a patch after "MS Halo 1.0" proves to be massively buggy and BSOD's in theatres nationwide...

  • I posted this in the last thread about the Halo movie:

    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=151990&cid=12 7 53829 [slashdot.org]

    And it's always nice to be right about something, since they've only got one offer on the table, and that offer comes with the predicted we're-not-going-to-follow-your-bible clause. If they want principle photography to start this fall, they should hire a production team and just do it. Of course, if they want a good movie, then they'll wait and do it right.
  • If they consult Red vs. Blue for the script...
  • or *I* won't be watching it.
  • The average action movie has something like 20 weeks of preproduction these days. Sci Fi is more (you can't even hope to shoot on location). The script probably has to be tossed. I hated 28 Days Later! Garland is not the best choice to script it, Dan O'Bannon would have been better.

    As for the writer's bible, these are fairly common... on TV. The movies are a whole other game.

    I also wonder why M$ didn't buy out a small studio, or build one. They could (would) have shot it on spec if they really believed

  • One word (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Geoffreyerffoeg ( 729040 )
    that Microsoft relinquish its demands and that the Halo movie strictly follow a Bungie-penned "bible,"

    Is the word "and" in that clause supposed to be there?
  • Am I the only one who finds this to be absolutely ridiculous.

    I mean really... filming a multimillion dollar movie about a game that's a mindless fps. I've read stories that "hollywood wants metroid", etc. Let's not forget about previous attempts like "Resident Evil", "Final Fantasy", "Street Fighter", and "Super Mario Bros."--Wait a minute; it's starting to make sense to me.

    Here's how it is:

    Microsoft is using this as a marketing ploy, and the movie's going to be wretched. I don't care what any of you Bun
    • Holy flamebait batman.

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