District 9 Director Still Interested in Halo Film

[Andy Chalk]

District 9 Director Still Interested in Halo Film

Neill Blomkamp says he'd still love to make a Halo movie but only if he's given creative control of the project.

You may recall that Neill Blomkamp of fell apart [http://www.amazon.com/District-9-Blu-ray-Sharlto-Copley/dp/B002SJIO5E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1365611325&sr=8-2&keywords=District+9] back in 2009. Four years down the road, we still don't have a Halo flick and as far as I know there's not even anyone tentatively tapped to make it, but Blomkamp says he's still interested, if - and only if - the circumstances are right.

"I still really love the world and the universe and the mythology of Halo. If I was given control, I would really like to do that film," Blomkamp said at a press event for his current project, Elysium. "But that's the problem. When something pre-exists, there's this idea of my own interpretation versus 150 other people involved with the film's interpretation of the same intellectual property. Then the entire filmgoing audience has their interpretation. You can really live up to or fail in their eyes. That part isn't appealing to me, but the original pieces are appealing."

Halo does have a deep and powerful mythology, and while that can be a great stepping-off point for spin-off projects like films, it can also be a real straightjacket for creative types who like to do their own thing. And given the choice, I'd rather see Blomkamp stay that course; the bright side of his departure from the Halo project was the excellent District 9, and if not making Halo means more movies like that, I'm sure not going to complain.

Elysium [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1535108/], by the way, is set to come out in August.

Source: IGN [http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/04/10/elysiums-neill-blomkamp-would-still-love-to-make-a-halo-movie]


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[josemlopes]

I dont think he is the right director for it unless its a really gritty Halo. I love Neil Blomkamp style with District 9, that Halo short and his other short movies but Halo is a bit flashy with purple aliens and shit.

Waiting for Elysium though

Spoiler: Elysium

 

[Absolutionis]

Doesn't seem like much of a bad idea to give full creative control to a director.

On one hand, that is what has led to many of these video-game movies being bad - the game producers themselves haven't mad much input and the end result was a jumbled mess. Either that or Uwe Boll.

On the other hand, Halo was never really known for its deep and engrossing storyline. It has a bunch of stuff you shoot. The storyline and creativity of the whole aspect was mediocre at best. The game is notable for making console shooters tolerable and console FPS multiplayer popular.

Why not just give him full creative control? At worst, you'll have another video game movie with a plotline just as good as any Halo game.

 

[Eri]

Didn't they make a trailer for this that had the older sister from Chronicles of Narnia?

Dost thou mean this trailer? I really want a Halo movie.

 

[Therumancer]

He's all wrong for the material, he's too much of a "message" director who would try and put some left-wing humanitarian spin on "Halo" and subvert it's entire point as pretty much a mythology built around justifying why a genetic superman is shooting a bunch of evil aliens in the head with a pistol.

This guy would probably want to make us sympathetic to some of the covenant species to an unheard of degree, and make us wonder if say Master Chief is right when he takes a mini-gun to a bunch of oddly shaped space midgets and turns them into a red mist.

People kind of want Halo to be Halo from the video games, the ideal director for it is someone who is going to make Halo, not insert their own vision, and this director is all wrong for that. I'll go so far as to say that I think we probably can't make "Halo" in this generation, because the entire attitude among directors and desire to make work "their own" is wrong for franchise tie-in material. The artistic director is great when working with original works, not so great when they are simply putting the pieces together for someone else's work, most director's can't accept it not being their work, just something they are given permission to visit for a time, and are expected to treat with reverance equal to the fans who made it popular enough for a movie to be considered.

 

[PunkRex]

Give it to whoever made Halo's trailers, they captured things quit nicly.

 

[fix-the-spade]

I dont think he is the right director for it unless its a really gritty Halo. I love Neil Blomkamp style with District 9, that Halo short and his other short movies but Halo is a bit flashy with purple aliens and shit.

A Halo film would be doomed whoever ended up in charge.

The universe built around the games is incredibly dark (betrayal, genocide, assassination, child soldiers and that's the good guys), at the same time any studio backing it would enforce a 12a rating to maximise potential audience.

The aliens can be perfectly intimidating (and gritty) when they're gleefully burning cities and tearing people limb from limb, but a 12a film would reduce them to big blue Stormtroopers. Also there's no way a major studio would finance a film without the presence of Chief, then there's no way they'd finance a film without his face appearing, then there's no way they'd let Chief be the pale, balding, haggard old man he's described as in the books. They'd probably shoe horn a love interest in too. Then make it a prequel to avoid having to step outside or on top of the game's established canon...

So, 12a Halo starring Taylor Lautner as young Master Chief anyone?

 

[Velociferocks]

Didn't they make a trailer for this that had the older sister from Chronicles of Narnia?

Dost thou mean this trailer? I really want a Halo movie.

No, he meant Forward unto Dawn. Which is not a trailer, it's a 90min webseries. So it's basically a movie.
http://www.youtube.com/show/halo4forwarduntodawn

 

[bz316]

*Get's on knees* Mr. Blomkamp, on behalf of all those who love original sci-fi and who know that NO movie based on a video game has ever been anything even approaching good, I beg of you, in front of the whole internet: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT WASTE YOUR TALENT ON A FUCKING VIDEO GAME MOVIE!

 

[MiskWisk]

A little unsure about this, movies based on games aren't exactly known for their award winning performances.

That said, if the directors take a leaf out the the Forward unto Dawn series and don't make it about the Chief but about ordinary people trying to survive in that Universe then it could turn out watch-able.

Also, I refuse to answer my original captcha as I am not a gambler.

 

[Undomesticated Equine]

District 9 fans interested in sequel.
HALO sucks and movie based on it would be just a waste. Why not make something interesting like say District 9 sequel.

 

[Absolutionis]

District 9 fans interested in sequel.
HALO sucks and movie based on it would be just a waste. Why not make something interesting like say District 9 sequel.

Just because the storyline and mythology are awful doesn't mean the gameplay is. Millions of people play or have played the Halo franchise because it was the only game out for XBox. It's a popular game and it'll make money.

People just want to see aliens get shot by a slow-moving invincible faceless guy while a sexualized hologram talks to him. It'll be like Transformers 4 with less robots. It'll sell well regardless of the content. Microsoft needs to stop pretending Halo is some sacred cow and just sign over the rights.

District 9's cliffhanger was nicely done and is asking for a sequel, but a Halo movie would still gather a larger audience.

 

[Terminate421]

I love the obligatory hate this franchise gets. It's quite sad to see that people watch some youtube videos of the game and think they have a valid opinion of a franchise with a lore deep enough to be quite interesting, not to mention make sense without making too many issues.

A Halo movie could be great, why?

Thats why. It seriously is annoying that this whole mentality of Halo being bad flows through people's minds.

 

[Darklord008]

I don't get the hate for Halo's storyline/lore. Personally, I find it fascinating, and very deep, comparatively. I feel like it would be easy to get a great Halo movie out of Blomkamp: Simply set it during the Insurrection, or at least at the tail end of it, when the Covenant were just starting to show up. Remember, the Spartans were originally created to fight humans, so it would be a good compromise: The Halo faithful would get the stuff they want (Spartans doing Spartan things), and Blomkamp gets his creative control to do as much of the moral-grey-area stuff as he feels is necessary.

 

[Lunar Templar]

lol, funny how some people are commenting on the games back story, and yet seem to know nothing of it, ah the Internet ....

anyway, I for one would could see, and very easily, a good Halo movie, there's a lot to work with, and this guy could get it right.

Sides, you all ***** how 'video game movies suck' yet openly balk at the idea of some one that actually has made good movies making one. 'This is why we can't have nice things' applys here

 

[Korten12]

I love the obligatory hate this franchise gets. It's quite sad to see that people watch some youtube videos of the game and think they have a valid opinion of a franchise with a lore deep enough to be quite interesting, not to mention make sense without making too many issues.

A Halo movie could be great, why?

Thats why. It seriously is annoying that this whole mentality of Halo being bad flows through people's minds.

Exactly. There is so much Halo lore it even dwarfs series like Mass Effect (granted Halo came first, but that's still an fps series vs an RPG series which are tend to be known for their large amount of lore.)

It's strange how people still today don't seem to understand this...

Also on the topic of FuD. I would say even a TV series or mini series in the vein of FuD would be great. Hell even it's special effects weren't that bad for the budget size.

 

[TheSapphireKnight]

That would be fantastic, if they were to do something I would prefer a story about ODSTs with Nathan Fillion and co. reprising their ODST roles would make my head explode.

But I always worry that MS wouldn't give it to someone like Blomkamp as well recived as he's been or let him really do what he wanted if he did give it to him.

 

[TwistedEllipses]

This seems quite a lot like how whenever a trailer for a Ryan Reynalds film comes out, he teases the possibility of a Deadpool film.

One of the top comments on a youtube trailer for Elysium is along the lines of "wow, is this a film coming out that actually has an original idea?", so yeah...there's a significant portion of people who would hate him to make a Halo film.

The best Halo fans are likely to get is a shot about 30 secs into the Elysium trailer that looks like it could easily double for a vista of a Halo...