The Halo movie rumors have been swirling around for quiet awhile now. They reached a fever pitch after the release of Halo 2, but Bungie and Microsoft just weren’t ready to settle for a film directed by McG. Well, according to Variety, they’ve finally reached a decision.

Microsoft has reached a deal with screenwriter Alex Garland. You might remember him from such projects as 28 Days Later and The Beach. Well, maybe not The Beach… did anyone actually watch that? Garland will adapt the game into a screenplay, and then his screenplay, along with the rights to the property will be offered up to the highest bidder.

This really seems like a smart way for MS to get this done. They’ll make a maximum amount of money off the rights and also have complete control over what sort of movie gets made out of gaming’s most lucrative franchise. Hopefully, having that much control means that this will be the first video game to movie translation in history that doesn’t in some way suck.

My only question is… can we get the Red vs Blue guys involved? Maybe add in a few moments of wacky comedy in Blood Gulch? They’ve already written more great Halo based material than Alex whatshisname could ever dream of. How about working in a robot that can only speak Spanish? Anyone?