The upcoming Halo movie got itself a new director recently, but lost a script. My hit-sensing senses are still wavering. There’s no reason why a Halo film shouldn’t rock to high heaven but people screw things up all the time. Let’s look at the history of the project.

Way back in June last year, Microsoft sent out scripts to studios, carried by men in Master Chief outfits. Classy, huh? Many folk were not keen on the script, but Universal picked it up anyway. It’s unclear whether there were giant spiders in it but you can probably find the script online. I mean, I could have, but I found a bunch of links already. What do you want from me? The Wikipedia page on all this is way more informative than this post. Why do I even bother?

Ahem. Sorry. Sometimes it just gets to me, y’know?

Anyhow, things got way way way cooler when it was announched that Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh would be producing. I’ve gone on record against their insatiable addiction to slow motion and unhealthy Warg obsession. But hey, a bit of slow mo would suit Halo to the ground. Also, Weta will be doing the effects. Say “From the Makers of The Lord of the Rings,” push the adventure aspects and some cool shots from Weta and you’ve got a hit.

But then they go and change the script, in the sense that they drop the old one and get someone to write a new one. This could be an improvement, but I get nervous when scripts get switched and sorted on big films. Before you know it you’ve got seven people writing it and touch-ups from Joss Whedon and Tom Stoppard. Where’s your artistic vision then? Hmmmm?

And today the director was announced. His name is Neill Blomkamp and he hasn’t actually made a motion picture before, BUT amongst other things he made a short sci-fi film called Alive in Joburg, which you can download here (77mb). It’s pretty cute and has quite a Halo-ish sensibility about how it treats its aliens. He also made that cool Citroen commercial with the dancing transforming car. So this is probably good news too. For one thing, he’s not Uwe Boll.

The way I see it, this film has the chance to be the best sci-fi action film in the history of everything. No pressure.

Oh, and Denzel might be the Chief.

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This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Thursday, August 10th, 2006. It concerns such pressing issues as film, games, halo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.