Can there be a Halo movie?

Halo Wars passed by and trailers for Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach along with “trailers” and clips such as the one below sparked a renewed interest in a Halo movie and often have made a few fans wonder, “If they can make such good videos and games, why can’t they work on a movie?”

There’s no doubt that science-fiction movies are still loved by the public as proved by Cameron’s Avatar and arguably District 9. So what’s exactly stopping a Halo movie? It’s not the film equipment and it’s definitely not the actors.

Ever since Halo 3 came out in 2007, fans have been asking, “Will there ever be a Halo movie?” As this concept of a Halo movie began to get support, there were immediately doubts that went against it. Fans have been in limbo ever since individuals ranging from Josh Olson to Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp attempted and failed to create a satisfying script or a production of the movie. There were problems mostly with the characters themselves, mainly the game’s protaganist ‘Master Chief’ who had a “faceless nature” that was difficult to work with according to Blomkamp. Microsoft was returned the rights to the film. Bungie, if they did have rights to the film and they don’t, agrees with Microsoft that the timing of the movie must be perfect especially in the market.

Halo: Reach will be a hit as seen by simply observing the reactions towards the first two trailers and of course the usual pent-up wait for an amazing game in which the developers has offered a few insights into including the new queue system in the multiplayer feature of Reach. So will the market be ready after Halo: Reach? Yes, but the huge problem is who could undertake such a huge task of turning the popular game series into a movie that everyone who’s pretty much played the games expects it to be? Neill Blomkamp himself strenuously worked on the construction of props and filming off and on. Then, unexpectedly the project died. He will not be returning to resume the project.

So is there hope for Halo fans wishing for a movie to come out as soon as possible? No..and Yes. Even Bungie doesn’t know when a movie will be made. Though in 2009, there were rumors of Spielberg possibly producing the Halo movie which many hope it won’t be like Indiana Jones: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Microsoft as of now has announced that the official Halo movie is on pause until “all other Halo projects are finished” which will obviously take more time than fans expect. Yet the Halo series will eventually get old which by that time, the movie may be considered. It’s still hope whether it’s faint or strong.

Many still make fan-made trailers in hopes of one day seeing the actual movie on the big-screen and others promote the ‘Halo culture’ in the forms of “machinimas” where a game and its ‘movie’ features (if there are any) are used in order to create parodies, entirely new storylines branching off from Halo 3, or simply creating creative ‘episodes’. Famous machinima includes Red V.S Blue and Arby n’ The Chief which currently are among the most popular Halo machinimas.