It was a little less than a year ago that 20th Century Fox’s deal with Microsoft and executive producer Peter Jackson fell through and doomed the much anticipated Halo movie to development hell. Now, it looks like Fox is getting back in the Halo business. Just not necessarily the Halo movie business.

The trades are all reporting that Fox has signed a massive deal with Microsoft and game maker Bungie to become the primary licenser for merchandise based on Halo. That includes the games, and anything else that might result from the franchise. Presumably that also means movies.

With “Halo 3” soon to arrive on Xbox 360 game consoles, Fox is planning a media blitz of Halo related products targeted at young adults and even us soon to be irrelevant thirtysomethingers. It’s books, collectibles, clothing, the usual stuff, but I doubt anyone reading this article actually cares about the methods Fox will use to get even richer. The question here is: could this get the movie going again?

The answer? Don’t hold your breath. Last we heard Peter Jackson was still pretty adamant that the movie would only be made if someone would give him a massive pile of cash and let him use an inexperienced, under-qualified director. Fox on the other hand seemed pretty certain at the time that this was lunacy, and I doubt a marketing deal will change any of that.

Still, a deal like this does draw Fox a little closer to the Halo universe. If they own the merchandising rights to everything connected with the movie, they stand to make even more money off a film, should it ever happen. Maybe that extra taste will help them justify the amount of money they’d have to risk on the project. It can’t hurt.