Spielberg Eying Halo Movie?

Now that the high-profile Halo movie deal with Peter Jackson has fallen through, reports have Steven Spielberg looking at taking on Master Chief.

Back in 2005, Microsoft inked a deal with partners Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh to create a film based on the company’s Halo gaming franchise—and later expanded the deal to include an installment of the Halo game plus a separate gaming title. Over the years, absolutely nothing has come out of those high-profile deals: the Halo movie was apparently scuttled by studio infighting. Although Jackson’s partnership with director Neil Blomkamp was born out of the Halo deal and later gave rise to the forthcoming scifi picture District 9, so far Microsoft doesn’t seem to have wrong an iota of Jackson’s influence into Halo—and let’s not forget the company let Bungie Studios spin off as an independent company almost two years ago.

Now movie news site IESB.net reports that Hollywood mega-producer Steven Spielberg may be the next in line for the Halo franchise. Spielberg is known as an avid gamer—and has a multi-game deal with Electronic Arts which (so far) has produced the Nintendo Wii title Boom Blox. According to the report, Spielberg’s newly independent Dreamworks studio has been looking for a major project to launch their distribution arrangement with Disney, and Spielberg was "blown away" by writer Stuart Beattie’s script for Halo: The Fall of Reach.

Beattie—who also penned this summer’s action flick G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra—has characterized the Halo story as a prequel, character-driven piece that follows Master Chief from his childhood conscription through first contact with the alien Covenant.