Is Microsoft Nervous About Spielberg and Halo?

[JUMBO PALACE]

That picture is really disturbing....

OT: At least if a movie does get made the script follows the Fall of Reach novel. It was extremely interesting and very well written for a video game book.

 

[cerebus23]

did bad resident evil movies kill the re franchise? hell no.

wth are the so concerned about it? yea speilberg is not bulletproof, but the guys got some amazing films under his belt and or maybe two bad ones. his pro con ratio is still way above average.

halo fans will be halo fans no matter what, no matter how much you tell them their whole game is meh, they will not care throw out a potentially crappy movie and you will get the same reaction most of them would think the thing is the best thing since sliced bread even if it is bad.

and hell is the halo franchise dead anyway? if the movie is good it may encourage people who not bought the games, novels, comic books, beach towels, underwear, figures, to check out some of that stuff 2 or 3 years down the line when the movie comes out.

microsoft has ruined enough franchises on their own without ripping on a guy that is one of the greats of our era if he wants to do a movie on the thing let him do it it can hardly be worse than what microsoft did with shadowrun and mechwarrior which is put out a crap fps based on a amazing rpg and not do anything with the other after a series os great and acclaimed games.

 

[DTWolfwood]

Id watch that movie. for no other reason than because i happen to like the Halo lore. granted the game wasnt all that interesting, its mythos was fun to read.

That and i enjoy watching the Wing Commander movie certainly a good popcorn flick. Plus

Spoiler: Tcheky Karyo

was in it. Yeah that guy

 

[Jared]

I would have no concenrs if Spielberg did it, as, if anything he has proven he has the ability to make extremly, good quality movies.

Although, my first candidate would be Cameron

 

[Burningsok]

Is it just a coincidence that the Wing Commander series died with the Wing Commander movie?

Just coincidence... Really. I mean, the movie makes a good excuse but it just didn't happen that way. It didn't help, but it didn't really hurt it either, except maybe in the minds of people who had never played the games anyway.

To some degree the series was a victim of it's own success. Not only had the series creator gone off to create his own studio (that did the films effects work) EA became increasingly unwilling to risk the large budget price on a genre that was dwindling. That's why Wing Commander Prophecy scaled back the production costs from Wing Commander 4. It cost a tenth or lest of the cost of WC4. When numbers of sales on other space sim titles fell through the floor (Freespace 2 for examples) that was more than enough reason... sort of. Privateer 3 was even playable and was cancelled the day before they were supposed to do the film shoot.

The other contributing factor to the disappearance of Wing Commander was actually Ultima Online. It was *so* successful that EA - dissatisfied with the way Origin had been leaking funds - pretty much made Origin the Ultima Online company. This is where it gets wierd. During the time period of the movie's release, EA pretty much had Origin shift all their development to MMOs essentially. For a while it was Wing Commander Online. Then that Became Privateer Online - TWICE. That's right. There was at least two different attempts at Privateer online, and that was *AFTER* the movie came out. Heck there was almost even a Wing Commander TV show twice upon at time (after the film came out) that was being developed after the initial episodes of Enterprise came it with such strong viewer numbers. The reason a lot of these projects died were numerous and didn't really have anything to do with how well the film did.

I see a lot of direct parallels with Wing Commander. It wasn't the Wing Commander movie that killed the series. It was when Origin started putting Mark Hamil into the role of the protaganist, removing the generic pilot (that you could name) and the whole "the hero is you" bit that a lot of people liked. This desician, and other ones cannonballed the series. If you believe the hype and a lot of reviews these games were going strong and you'd be justified to wonder "WTF happened, it must have been the movie", but if you were part of the fan base at the time, and on a lot of the forums and stuffm the players were actually fairly against what was going on, including changes to the gameplay to make it "more realistic" in the way ships handled and so on. Origin went right ahead to play with their celebrity actors and big movie productions, and the fans eventually decided "nope, not anymore. You know we made two previous games sell well that weren't what we wanted due to loyalty, take these last ones and stick them where the sun doesn't shine".

Chris Roberts fully intended to get into the film buisness. His movie making aspirations are evident even in WC2. Prophecy sold just fine. WC4's budget really ate into the profit margins of what was a really successful game... enough for EA/Origin to shy away from that kind of investment. What worried them was that fans of a WC6 or 7 would demand that same level of investment and they just couldn't justify it. So prophecy was an attempt to prove that they could do it for a fraction of the cost.

You seem to know your stuff. Nice 1st post And welcome to the Escapists. Cookies are on the table to the left. You better hurry though, Jack and Calumon have already eaten half the bowl.

 

[Andy Chalk]

It didn't help, but it didn't really hurt it either, except maybe in the minds of people who had never played the games anyway.

But this is exactly the point. The fanboys are going to hoot and howl about whatever inaccuracies and deviations from canon they can pick out, but they'll go see it (or at the very least download it) and it probably won't have any great bearing on their feelings about the franchise one way or another.

But Microsoft wants to grow the franchise. They want to make it bigger and better with each iteration. And that means appealing to mainstream audiences who haven't played it, and who have only a peripheral knowledge of the franchise. MS has managed the property to incredible heights so far, so do they really want to hand it over to someone else, even Spielberg, and especially if he's working from an original script? I don't think so. Even if it's good, if it bombs it sets a precedent in the minds of those who aren't intimately familiar with the series. It actually comes back to what Levine said about videogames being the "junior varsity" of the movie industry: Mainstream, non-gamer audiences will see a failed Halo movie and think, well, it's good enough for the 14-year-olds but clearly not up to snuff as a "real" entertainment franchise. A movie that isn't a mega-blockbuster hit won't kill Halo, but it could very easily stunt it for years to follow.

 

[ShakerSilver]

Why are they nervous if Spielberg works on it? I mean it's not like Uwe Boll is asking to do it, it friggin' Steven Spielberg! He's one the most successful directors ever.

Plus, Halo has had other forms of media, like the books, the comics, and even short animated films. Is a feature-film really that dangerous? I mean Super Mario Bros had a movie back in the 80's, and although it was crap, Mario sales weren't going bad.

 

[Ultra_Caboose]

I could easily see Spielberg making a decent Halo movie. His WW2 movies are excellent, his work with Indiana Jones is fantastic. The man can easily create a sense of awe and excellent action scenes.

The only concern is whether or not the story is up to snuff. It won't matter how good the rest of the movie is if the story can't carry it.

 

[poiuppx]

I really hope a halo movie comes out and kills that franchise, been hilarious.

Have you ever spoken to a Halo fanatic? The movie would have to give them multiple diseases and throw bricks through their car windows before it would even HURT the franchise.

Which is why, OT, Microsoft's idiocy here makes no bloody sense. The fanbase is so violently installed and committed, it's BOUND to make back its money and then some rather heavily. The fact Spielberg, an extremely well-regarded figure in modern film, would be involved seals the deal that critics would at least TRY not to be overly caustic about it, and that some folks who've never played the games would give it a try on his name value alone. Cripes, is the Microsoft money vault REALLY running so rich that they'd be willing to pass this up?

 

[SelectivelyEvil13]

did bad resident evil movies kill the re franchise? hell no.

wth are the so concerned about it? yea speilberg is not bulletproof, but the guys got some amazing films under his belt and or maybe two bad ones. his pro con ratio is still way above average.

halo fans will be halo fans no matter what, no matter how much you tell them their whole game is meh, they will not care throw out a potentially crappy movie and you will get the same reaction most of them would think the thing is the best thing since sliced bread even if it is bad.

and hell is the halo franchise dead anyway? if the movie is good it may encourage people who not bought the games, novels, comic books, beach towels, underwear, figures, to check out some of that stuff 2 or 3 years down the line when the movie comes out.

microsoft has ruined enough franchises on their own without ripping on a guy that is one of the greats of our era if he wants to do a movie on the thing let him do it it can hardly be worse than what microsoft did with shadowrun and mechwarrior which is put out a crap fps based on a amazing rpg and not do anything with the other after a series os great and acclaimed games.

I agree because a movie really will not shift any entrenched fans opinions, but has the potential to sway those who would otherwise not even care one iota about Halo.

If anyone runs the highest risk of ruining Halo, it's Microsoft. Now that Bungie's left MS with themselves (ouch) and 343 Studios, they should be rethinking would could harm the Halo franchise. Namely, a really bad Halo game that even puts off the fans. Bungie built up a huge amount of community support and trust, so Microsoft's least concern is whether or not Spielberg doesn't polish the Master Chief's Assault Rifle.

 

[Sillyiggy]

I really hope a halo movie comes out and kills that franchise, been hilarious.

I am in the same boat. I just don't get the hype. It has been an average series to me, and I will admit I stopped even trying them after 2 but I am sick of Halo and Halo wanna-be's dominating the console scene (at the expense of better gaming).

Make the movie; make the horrible movie; today; right now; yesterday; just do it man!

 

[Bruce Edwards]

hold on a second Micro$oft wont then Speilburg direct this without bugging him Speilburg I mean come on this guy practically wrote the book on cheep cash in sequals and compleate monatization of a franchise I would have thought they would worship him

I think you have confused Lucas with Speilberg.

Anyway, one talking head at Microsoft claiming nervousness doesn't mean that the decisionmakers for the franchise feel that way.

Plus, much of the Halo:Fall of Reach book deals with a very strange coming-of-age story. That is like crack for Speilberg.