The time to make a movie out of Halo was in 2005, but, with a new installment in the video game franchise due out on store shelves September 14th, a great way to tease the new game in non-gamer markets is to pretend they’re still going to shoot it. So Microsoft went to Variety and tried to rekindle the Halo: Movie fires without actually, you know, doing anything about making a Halo movie.
See they’re Microsoft and their idea of making a movie is paperwork. Frank O'Connor, who oversees the Halo franchise for software giant says they’re still interested in doing a Halo feature and as proof offers this, “We've created an awful lot of documentation and materials to support a feature film.” Somewhere, someone at Microsoft headquarters has gone through all the trouble to fill out all the necessary forms in triplicate, and they just can’t let that go to waste. But they’re not in any rush. Really the thing’s still in the exact same place it was back in 2005 when they presented their idea for a movie and Hollywood responded with a resounding “no thanks”. Says O’Connor, “We have a good idea of what kind of story we want to tell, but won't move on it until there's a great reason to do it. We're in no particular hurry.”
They’re in no hurry because they’re already past the point at which it would have made sense to do the movie. Halo is still wildly popular but it’s not what it was back in 2005 and it probably never will be that again. It’ll always be one of the biggest gaming franchises of all time but back in 2005, it seemed like lightning in a bottle. Now in the eyes of Hollywood it’s just a really great gaming property which could probably be turned successfully into a movie, but probably won’t be given the budget it needs to be done properly, so if they ever do it will only be ruined.
I guess we Halo fans should be happy that Microsoft hasn’t abandoned the idea of turning it into a movie, I just don’t see any way they’ll do it right. There was a chance, a really slim chance, that someone might do it right, the first time they tried back in 2005. That’s gone. Long gone.
