|
|||||||||||||||||||
Is Halo Being Rewritten?By Josh Tyler: 2006-07-14 00:00:00
As we predicted, after a few months of silence news is flying fast and furious on the Halo movie front again. Despite the dire forecasts of some, the project is far from dead. Rather, they're simply doing exactly what they said from the beginning: Taking their time to get it right.
For game creators Bungie (who retains creative control over the movie) that means refusing to allow the movie to be made until all the right pieces are in place. It may also mean scrapping their old script and giving it a go with another one. The first pass was written by 28 Days Later scripter Alex Garland, who was paid a hefty sum in advance for his work. The new one, according to GamesToWatch will be a guy named D.B. Weiss. At least that's what Weiss himself told them. There's been absolutely no confirmation of any kind of this from anyone else, other than the fact that his name is listed on IMDB along with Alex Garland… and let's face it anyone can get listed on IMDB. At one point Uwe Boll claimed he was directing the movie and managed to get IMDB to give him a director credit, even though he was nowhere near the film. Worse, it's a little unclear on exactly what he's doing, if indeed he really is doing anything. He says he's "starting in on an entirely new second draft." So what does that mean? Does that mean they're scrapping Garland's script and starting over with something written by a guy without a single screenwriting credit to his name, or does it mean he's starting in on a second draft of Garland's take? It's hard to say anything at this point, other than there's some guy named D.B. Weiss with absolutely no screenwriting credibility claiming he's doing some writing on the Halo movie for Peter Jackson. It'd be easy to jump to a lot of conclusions here, but for now it's probably best to wait for some sort of more official confirmation on what's going on. What is certain is that it's not unusual for a project of this size to go through a few script iterations before hitting the screen, though it's a little odd to think they might be scrapping Garland's version, when nearly everyone agrees that his script was damned near brilliant. Wait and see. Meanwhile, in related news from AICN comes two bits of Halo info. First that the Denzel Washington for Master Chief rumor that's been making the rounds is probably exactly what we all thought: Completely false. Second, and even more encouraging to anyone who knows anything about the game, WETA told AICN that they're determined to keep Master Chief from taking his helmet off. If you've never played the game and thus know absolutely nothing about the rich story on which they're basing the film, then you're probably sneering at that. After all, people love staring at celebrity close-ups. If you don't believe me, just look at the posters for any Tom Cruise movie released in the past decade. But like V in V for Vendetta or Darth Vader, it's actually an incredibly integral part of the character. The fact that they've got the balls to keep his helmet on ought to be an indicator to anyone with hope for Halo that at least someone involved has their head in the right place when it comes to this project. It might be easier to cast some hot young star as MC and show off his face, but the fact that they're willing to take a risk like that to do the movie right says something pretty special about what we may get in Halo. Until someone gets a videogame to movie adaptation right, expect the worst. But right now Halo is still the best hope we have for cinema's first good videogame to movie translation. It's gotta happen eventually.
ARCHIVES
MOVIE NEWS l MOVIE REVIEWS l MOVIE PREVIEWS l DVD REVIEWS l DVD NEWS l TELEVISION l GAMES l CELEBRITY l TECHNOLOGY l MUSIC l PAGES l MESSAGE BOARDS | TAG CLOUD This site is operated by Cinema Blend LLC. For advertising inquiries, contact Gorilla Nation. CinemaBlend.com is a private, independently owned website which is intended only as entertainment. The views expressed on this website may or may not reflect those of its owner. Don't take us too seriously. Made in Webta Labs 
|
|
