Halo, one of the biggest video game franchises of all time, is copping a live-action TV series and Aussie streaming platform Stan will be premiering it here.
Don’t expect it any time soon, though, production won’t begin until early 2019, but we can tell you it’ll be a scripted drama based on the popular Xbox game with the working title, HALO, and that episodes will be an hour in length.
The series will be produced by Showtime together with Microsoft, 343 Industries, and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television, so a good outcome seems pretty promising, but we’ll have to wait and see whether it can shake the dreaded video game movie / TV curse.
Kyle Killen, best known for his work on Awake, will be writing, executive producing, and showrunning the series, with Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) set to direct multiple episodes.
While the show will take place in the Halo universe, we don’t know whether or not it’ll centre around Master Chief, but it probably shouldn’t. Giving a character and voice to a usually voiceless vessel generally doesn’t yield the best results. Hopefully it’s some offshoot stories set in the same 26th-century conflict between humanity and the Covenant aliens.
“HALO is our most ambitious series ever, and we expect audiences who have been anticipating it for years to be thoroughly rewarded,” Showtime CEO David Nevins said in a press release.
In the history of television, there simply has never been enough great science fiction. Kyle Killen’s scripts are thrilling, expansive and provocative, Rupert Wyatt is a wonderful, world-building director, and their vision of HALO will enthral fans of the game while also drawing the uninitiated into a world of complex characters that populate this unique universe.”
The series will come exclusively to Stan whenever the hell it’s ready. Until then, fans of the series will no doubt be biting their nails until more details emerge.
