Are you busy in the summer of 2008? Because someone, somewhere, is getting in line right now to buy a ticket to the motion picture adaptation of Halo®. This exciting project, which will be produced by geek gods and Academy Award® winners Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh under their WingNut Films banner for Universal Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox, has finally announced a director.

The Halo motion picture will be helmed by Neill Blomkamp, making his feature film debut. Blomkamp is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and original artists currently working in short films and commercial advertising. Halo will be distributed domestically by Universal and internationally by Fox. Visual effects, miniatures, and creature design and creation will all be handled by Jackson's award-winning Weta Digital Ltd. and Weta Workshop, Ltd., most recently known for their Oscar-worthy work on The Lord of the Rings films.

A native of South Africa, Blomkamp directed the acclaimed 2005 short film, Alive in Joburg, that depicted a future in which extraterrestrials have become refugees. Last year, Blomkamp also received three Clio Awards and a Visual Effects Society Award for his television commercial Citroen-Alive with Technology. In 2004, Blomkamp was recognized as "One of the Top Five Directors to Watch" at the First Boards Awards and was a featured artist at the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors Showcase at Cannes. He has also been nominated for an Emmy award for his work on an episode of James Cameron's Dark Angel.

The guys short flims below are very well done, I forsee halo to be very decent. Peter Jackson is the Exec producer!

Alive in Joburg - About aliens living as refugees in South Africa - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1185812222812358837
Yellow - A movie he directed for an Adidas film series about an artificial intelligence gone astray. http://youtube.com/watch?v=Jmd8BDiB-qU

Tetra Vaal a commercial about a futuristic robot. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1845016404760165806

my 2cents

a) peter jackson direction wise makes films epic, wether its his low budget films from his early career to his recent high budge films each one has an epic film with a great underlining plot and story in a universe that is more epic to the story told

b) halo as a game was epic in the sense that it was the first fps game to capture the fps shooter audience from consoles, though it wasnt the first fps console game it was the first to give a reason to other major developers to bother with the genre on console as they now realised people would play enjoy and be able to slaw multiplayer wise as good as people on pc. *though console vs pc is still to be test*

c) halo as a storyline was mediocre for a pc game, the setting was repetitive as was most of the gameplay, it was hard to imagine how it capture the auidence it did yet still understandable considering the mentality of most console gamers.

combineing all this i forsee peter jackson as an executive producer turning this game to movie conversion into something into what the game could not offer and thats a storyline that you could sit down and enjoy. i also expect the universe in which halo is set in to become something that will become a huge topic of interest and something to give more thought into after seeing the movie.

in saying all that there is every chance this could be the movie with peter jacksons name on it that everyone realises that hes really not that clever.

but till more information is really released the best i can come up with is assumptions.

the games sucked but the movie might turn out good.

the games sucked but the movie might turn out good.

Yeah, like that doom movie

i thought the doom movie was ok

the doom movie was exactly what the game was really.

except for demons replaced with zombies. no, wait, they weren't zombies, they were alien mutants. yeah, that works much better than "demons".

but seriously, i did like the movie

executive producer != creative driving force of a movie

Some bright spark realised that having Uwe Bolle attached to a film was not doing it any favours, so they figure they will throw enough money at PJ in order to attach his name to a film, and use the left over to pay a no name director to make it. Yeh, I know execs often finance things, but I get the feeling MS are throwing the balls in this one.

Heh, this will be the movie tie-in for HAL04.

I'll be watching the shorts tomorrow, heard good things about them so far.

I foresee this movie having a good chance at being not completely crap.

last edited by ccl at 23:28:45 10/Aug/06

Did Halo have a storyline?

If you thought the Doom movie was good, then you are on drugs.

P.S Can I have some?

i enjoyed doom. its one of the better game to movie adaptations. halo could end up being the new aliens if they give it a decent storyline with some nice suspense, horror and action.

doom movie was better than the hulk, more irritating people died in it.

Though the hulk was s*** so i don't know why i'm even bothering to use it as an example.

last edited by icewyrm at 00:31:53 11/Aug/06

I have hope because of peter jackson, but they will need to do something more then just game -> movie because the game and story sucked.

Did Halo have a storyline?

Halo had probably the best storyline for a FPS since Deus Ex. Much better than the Doom/Quake/Half-Life series.

last edited by Tael at 13:02:59 11/Aug/06

And I was so hoping Uwe Boll might have something to do with it.

Halo had probably the best storyline for a FPS since Deus Ex. Much better than the Doom/Quake/Half-Life series.

As f***ing if. It was just as derivitive as the rest.

As f***ing if. It was just as derivitive as the rest.

I didn't say it was any less derivative. But Halo had well-written dialogue and likeable characters, something the other games lacked.

last edited by Tael at 13:58:57 11/Aug/06

I watched all those links in the op and they were interesting. this movie might end up being good

c) it was hard to imagine how it capture the auidence it did yet still understandable considering the mentality of most console gamers.

What the hell is this supposed to mean? I liked the halo storyline, your 2 cents are s***.

edit: I played it on the PC.

last edited by Greazy at 15:18:47 11/Aug/06

There's a decent interview with the dude here http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=24139 .

Personally, I really didn't care much for the story in Halo, at least not anymore than any other FPS. That said it would be nice to see someone make a decent movie from a videogame narative for once.

Does the MC in Halo _ever_ take off his helmet? I wonder if Hollywood can resist the temptation to have a leading actor whose face you can't see. I don't think so - unless they make him an animated character, hahaahahah.

I wonder if Hollywood can resist the temptation to have a leading actor whose face you can't see

V for Vendetta?

groydis: epic?

I wonder if Hollywood can resist the temptation to have a leading actor whose face you can't see

Friday the 13th series....Kane Hodder