Forget any rumors you may or may not have heard about Guillermo Del Toro and Halo. The best info always comes straight from the source and Empire Online has the word from Del Toro's own lips.

He's currently in Europe where he's working on his latest project, Pan's Labyrinth, so it stands to reason that the Brits would get to him for an interview first. Apparently the rumors are true: Peter Jackson has passed the word for Guillermo to see if he's interested. There's only one hang up. Del Toro is too hung up on Hellboy 2.

"Well, Halo is very much an interesting project because it’s so full of monsters,” he said. “It’s a big temptation. I’m in talks with them [Universal and Bungie Films] and Peter, but it’s not true that it’s on and Hellboy’s off. Hellboy’s on. If everything goes as planned, Hellboy will go.”

Del Toro seems to have a passion both for gaming and the Halo world and for characters who don't ever show their face, such as Halo's Master Chief. “Most of the time games don’t have an universe or creatures that interest me enough. And this one does. Master Chief is such an iconic character and it’s very much a sort of a good version of [Hellboy villain] Kroenen.”

OK, but where does all this fit into Guillermo's schedule? “The ideal for me would be to do Hellboy 2 and if Halo doesn’t go away, then yeah, I’d love to do both," said Del Toro, "But it may go to somebody else. We’ll see.”