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Microsoft to finance Halo movie
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Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
This does worry me a little, the fact that the creator of the series seems basically NOT involved that much. Are you going to have some like of "veto" power to make decisions on key elements that you feel (as Bungie, not just you personally
) are being misused/misinterpreted in a way ?Panajev2001a said:This does worry me a little, the fact that the creator of the series seems basically NOT involved that much. Are you going to have some like of "veto" power to make decisions on key elements that you feel (as Bungie, not just you personally
We are working very closely with our partners, and remembering that good games do not = good movies. We are trusting movie makers to make movies, while staying true to our universe and not adding a hilarious monkey sidekick.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Stinkles said:
True, but if making a good movie that uses the games' name and universe means radically changes what the game IS, what its characters are, etc... then I think the movie should not be made or at least it should not use the game's name.
If that implies that if they put the monkey sidekick you can actually FORCE them to take it out, then I am happy again
.Busty said:
The film will be made one way or another. Microsoft is adament about getting it filmed and released in 2008. If Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh had come out and said they were backing out after Universal and Fox pulled out, I would begin to question the likelihood of it getting released. But since they're staying in there and Microsoft appears to be pushing forward, it will get made.
The film may not be a proven IP in the "mainstream" cinema as you say. But Halo is a big name outside of gaming. I saw stories on CNN, MSNBC, ABC News and in newspapers everywhere talking about Halo 2's launch. I haven't seen that with any other single title's launch. Only consoles get that kind of publicity.
Halo has a pull and there will be people that will go see it. Science-fiction and summer go together hand-in-hand. Look at Independence Day for example. That movie did over $300 million at the box office. It was done by a relatively unknown writer and director. Roland Emmerich was only known for Stargate. It went over big. This has Peter Jackson attatched to it. Just mention Jackson's name in the advertising and people will go. Not to mention if you invest enough of the advertisements in showing the action scenes and CG, people will go.
It may not be a big success, but it will be a success nonetheless with theatrical sales and DVD sales. Couple merchandising in and this will be big.
Francias Castiglione
Banned
Stinkles said:
I would imagine having the Halo "bible" is much the same as having the Tolkien works to reference from. Apart from the general public may never get to read that themselves.
ferrarimanf355
Banned
As long as it isn't Sofia Coppola, I'm cool.Defuser said:
ferrarimanf355
Banned
Then WETA can get busy on the live-action Neon Genesis Evangelion movie, eh?Stinkles said:
Wow @ "Halo is a videogame so it can't be translated into a successful movie"
First of all Halo is a concept.
If a concept is strong enough to sell 14 million games in 5 years, as a new IP by a small MAC developer, it sure as hell can take Hollywood by storm too. If X-Men and Pirates of the Caribbean can be successful then Halo can be successful too.
Because videogame movies are just as dead as pirate or superhero movies were a couple of years ago.
And remember, there are only 8 million people who even know it's a videogame movie, for the rest of the potential audience Halo is going to be a kick-ass Sci-Fi action blockbuster by that fat Lord of the Rings guy.
First of all Halo is a concept.
If a concept is strong enough to sell 14 million games in 5 years, as a new IP by a small MAC developer, it sure as hell can take Hollywood by storm too. If X-Men and Pirates of the Caribbean can be successful then Halo can be successful too.
Because videogame movies are just as dead as pirate or superhero movies were a couple of years ago.
And remember, there are only 8 million people who even know it's a videogame movie, for the rest of the potential audience Halo is going to be a kick-ass Sci-Fi action blockbuster by that fat Lord of the Rings guy.
Francias Castiglione
Banned
Frenck said:
Directed by the dude who made that car dance in that ad!
Grimmy said:
You are retarded sir. You think that just because it's a movie based off of a video game it's going to bomb? Just becuase Paul Anderson and Uwe Bowle are the worst directors in the movie industry and make shit for movies about video games you think that every video game to movie will fail. Paul Anderson and Uwe Bowle ANE NOT DIRECTING HALO.
1. This is the first video game movie that has talent behind it.
2. It's a major franchise.
3. Has an actual budget above $5.00.
4. Has a good universe to work with. (Mortal Kombat's universe... HAHAHAHAHA)
So please stop talking about video game movies bombing. They were directed by ****ing dumbasses.
HomerSimpson-Man
Member
Mortal Kombat is still the only one that worked and knew what it was about as a movie and where it came from. That somehow actually respected it's source material and yet somehow turned what questionable limited material into a movie that made sense of the whole thing. Fun and kickass to watch. The sequel....eh...there was no sequel...
ferrarimanf355
Banned
I don't have high hopes for that one, either. If the filmmakers stay true to the original series, the Jesus huffers will be calling for heads to roll. If they capitulate to those deceptively-named religious groups and bowderlise it, the fans will be calling for their heads. It's a no-win situation.icecream said:
I never bothered with the second movie.Good thing, I suppose.HomerSimpson-Man said:
JdFoX187 said:
Because only one director even tried to make a great movie out of a videogame.
(I'm going to leave FF out of this as it hasn't got anything to do with the games)
@ HomerSimpsonMan
I wouldn't go so far as to say that Mortal Kombat made sense, because it didn't, but it nailed the look of the games and it nailed the characters (And most of all, it added AWESOME music).
It isn't even a good B movie, but it is entertaining, something any other videogame adaption except for Silent Hill has yet to accomplish.
ferrarimanf355
Banned
Like I said earlier, as long as Sofia Coppola stays the hell away from video game movies, I'm cool. Can you imagine her doing a movie about feudal Japan? It would have a Puffy AmiYumi soundtrack and giant enemy crabs.SpacLock said:
Apparently, ADV is dead serious about doing it. Take that as you may.X26 said:
Proelite said:
OMG are people actually comparing the thousand page Tolkien literature with Halo the video game? The one with a hundred million fan base? There's simply no comparison in terms of risk and name recognition. The university I went to even had the entire section of dormitaries named after locations in Middle Earth. Look it up, it's even in California and not some obscure rain forest.
When you look at the movie industry as a whole, for each good or successful movie (not necessarily the same thing) there are 10 bombs. More often than not, and increasingly more so nowadays, the good movies are based on existing works, or from original scripts that have only been greenlighted at several levels, passing certain standards. That is why till this day we still do not have an Ender's Game movie, because there hasn't been a decent script for it yet. When someone insists on making a movie based on a video game and want to "rush" it out the door by 2008 summer, instead of waiting for the perfect script first, odds are stacked against it. Not saying there's no chance for it to be decent, just not likely that's all.
HomerSimpson-Man
Member
Frenck said:
Well made "more sense" than the games it came off from anyway. Yeah, the movie worked because how it nailed the right aspects. Yeah, the movie isn't high art or anything nor it ever presented itself to be, just straight badass entertaining movie with fights from people favorite videogame characters and made them look good onscreen, the casting, the set designs, and costume worked extremely well. The movie's music sure did pump you up. I always wished the games featured the Mortal Kombat theme, it's just so perfect.
The movie presented itself far better than even the games themselves to the point it influenced the games.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
HomerSimpson-Man said:
SILENT HILL
HomerSimpson-Man
Member
mckmas8808 said:
Eh, I guess....that could go eitherway because of the source material and how the director interpreted it.
Adam Blade
WWKC
linsivvi said:
UCI is ashamed to have you as an alumnus.
Har har.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
syllogism said:
did you even look at the boxoffice mojo site? it said 55 million international (including domestic). budget was 60 million
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
syllogism said:
i realize that. that's why i said that factoring video sales in, it probably pulled out in the end.
I never have been able to wrap my mind around the concept of taking one of the most violent video games of its time and turning it into a PG-13 movie. It went over fairly well, so I'm guessing they did something right.HomerSimpson-Man said:
And the debate we're having here is about quality, am I right? If we're talking financial success here, Resident Evil was a success. It was made on a budget of $33 million. And in domestic sales along, it earned $40 million. There was $62 million earned in the International markets. Even if you say that there was half of the $102 million going to the studio, it still garnered $18 million in profit.
I'm just ballparking the profit figures there, because I don't know. But Paul Anderson does have a somewhat decent track-record for making FINANCIALLY succesful video game adaptations. Uwe Boll on the other hand...
If this actually does get made, I just hope that MS tosses Larry Niven and David Brin a bone or two. The setup for Halo (lone earth ship pursued by coalition of alien religious fanatics goes to ground on a distant world) is ripped straight from Brin's novel Startide Rising, and the halos in Halo are smaller versions of the Ringworld in Niven's novel of the same name (and sequels). Both novels are well-known in sf circles, so this is hardly a case of accidental convergence.
IIRC, both Startide Rising and Ringworld were optioned by studios at one time or other, but movies based on them never saw the light of day. If the Halo movie follows the game faithfully at all, they never will, either - the imagery and concepts at the heart of those books would forever be derided as 'Halo ripoffs' by people not familiar with the works they came from.
At the very least, both of those authors deserve a mention in the credits and some financial compensation if a film is produced. It's just the right thing to do.
IIRC, both Startide Rising and Ringworld were optioned by studios at one time or other, but movies based on them never saw the light of day. If the Halo movie follows the game faithfully at all, they never will, either - the imagery and concepts at the heart of those books would forever be derided as 'Halo ripoffs' by people not familiar with the works they came from.
At the very least, both of those authors deserve a mention in the credits and some financial compensation if a film is produced. It's just the right thing to do.
professor_t
Member
Doh
MightyHedgehog
Member
What's important here is that the movie is allowed to freely interpret the source material to create the best film possible, just as the LotR trilogy did. It may not please those who are absolute sticklers to canon, but it must be a great film first. As long as that happens, I think this will be a very cool experience. I'm just hoping that the film starts at the beginning of the story (pre-Halo 1 game) and it's a true ensemble piece...no MC as main character, please. Need some humanization for the Spartans and some real human drama for a film to work.
It depends how much they "freely interpret" the source material. If you interpret it as much as Resident Evil, House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, etc...you're going to utterly ruin the movie.MightyHedgehog said:
What is so wrong with just taking the game and expanding on the events. For example, take The Flood book for example. Just use that as a framework. It covers the events pre-Halo: CE to an extent. It gives emotions to the Chief. It shows what happens with the rest of the humans on the Halo. It does a good job of covering all the bases and having a good story. And how can you say don't make the chief as the main character? The Chief is Halo.
MightyHedgehog
Member
I don't think it's the amount of interpretation, but rather the way you interpret it that makes a difference. Those movies weren't particularly inspired nor worked on by people who cared about it. Those were pure merchandising, basically. Silent Hill wasn't, IMO, but it was poorly written and had a director who really couldn't pull it off.JdFoX187 said:
If they can stick point for point to the Halo bible and still deliver a film that anyone who isn't familiar with the games can enjoy, then do it. But being tethered too closely to something that tells its story in a very different manner (interactive works) and trying to match that for a two-hour film is far from ideal if you really want to make it the best that it can be. Look at some of the most popular book to film adaptations and you'll see that they had to make decisions that took the characterization and plot points in different directions or had to make many cuts to fit the medium better. If they can manage to make a great film, that's all that matters, IMO.
If the story is about John/Master Chief, then it had better spend some quality time with his dialogue and setup. I can imagine MC crossing paths with the ensemble cast of main characters in the screenplay, but I'd rather not see MC as the lone hero type. The Halo movie is a good chance to take both a larger view of the happenings in that universe and a way to create more film story-friendly characters that can give the viewer some interesting and more dramatic POVs on what occurs.
I know it's impossible to take a video game and literally translate it frame-for-frame into a movie. But as I said, when you take movies like Resident Evil, they completely change the story around. You might have the same character names and similar situations, but it's just not the same.
You're going to have to make the Chief the lone-hero type in the movie. That's what he actually is. He's the last hope humanity has against the Covenant. For the movie to be succesful from a story standpoint, they need to show that humanity truly has its back against the wall and they're being wiped out left and right. Enter the Master Chief, and the battle starts changing and there is a glimmer of hope.
The thing that I really loved about the books was how they actually humanized him. He wasn't just the armor-clad stereotypical soldier. He had feelings, felt loss for his former squadmates. And it also talked about the heaviness he felt from being the only hope for humanity.
They can capture that and still keep the lone-hero aspect of him.
You're going to have to make the Chief the lone-hero type in the movie. That's what he actually is. He's the last hope humanity has against the Covenant. For the movie to be succesful from a story standpoint, they need to show that humanity truly has its back against the wall and they're being wiped out left and right. Enter the Master Chief, and the battle starts changing and there is a glimmer of hope.
The thing that I really loved about the books was how they actually humanized him. He wasn't just the armor-clad stereotypical soldier. He had feelings, felt loss for his former squadmates. And it also talked about the heaviness he felt from being the only hope for humanity.
They can capture that and still keep the lone-hero aspect of him.
PistolGrip
sex vacation in Guam
Don't worry guys this movie is going to be a huge success just like Doom was
It'll make 70 Mil. No sweat!
/sarcasm towards MS thinking they can ask studios to spend 145Mil on this, not to mention the rest of the associated costs
:lol at the people who think halo games are known for it's story.
It'll make 70 Mil. No sweat!
/sarcasm towards MS thinking they can ask studios to spend 145Mil on this, not to mention the rest of the associated costs
:lol at the people who think halo games are known for it's story.
I am huge halo fan seriously but I take a FF or half-life movie over halo movie anyday
The premise that every single person who has purchased a Halo videogame, or nearly every single person who has purchased a Halo videogame, will automatically go out to see a Halo movie is such nonsense. Firstly this sure hasn't held with previous videogame franchises and some have been very popular game franchises. Secondly most people don't go to the movie theater at all and they aren't going to be persuaded to start going for a videogame movie. Lastly most people who play Halo, or any other game for that matter, care about playing the game and nothing else to with the franchise. Most people that play games simply play the games and that's it. They don't post on forums and they don't buy books about the game and they don't sit in anticipation of a movie adaptation. Many Halo fans will flock to the movie if it is made, but many more won't.
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