Fans of Microsoft’s ‘Halo’ video game series have long been waiting to see whatever became of the rumored TV series that Steven Spielberg and Showtime were apparently working on after the project was announced way back when ‘Halo 4’ came out, around four and a half years ago. However, the long wait does not necessarily mean a lack of returns as apparently, everyone involved is still working on the series. It has just taken longer to come to fruition than the fans expected.
Showtime President and CEO David Nevins claims to have seen some of the scripts for the ‘Halo’ series, and when asked about the burgeoning series during the Television Critics Association winter press tour this year, he stated:
“[It’s] still in very active development.”
At the same time, the president of programming at Showtime, Gary Levine, told TV Guide that ‘Halo:’
“…is absolutely still in development, still moving forward and I’m encouraged by what we’ve seen so far…It’s still live action, and it will definitely satisfy the fans of Halo and I think also satisfy the drama audiences of Showtime.”
Of course, it was a no-brainer for someone to attempt to turn the franchise into either a film or a TV show, especially when the games themselves have sold more than 65 million copies for the Xbox console and grossed almost $3.4 billion for Microsoft. The real spark for fans though was when a live-action web-series came out in 2012 titled ‘Halo: Forward Unto Dawn which teased what a live-action TV series based on the franchise could look like, whetting the appetite for fans and studios execs alike. Then, with both Spielberg and Showtime behind the series, a lot of assumptions were made about how quickly we would see the series come to light, but clearly everyone involved, including Microsoft, is trying their best to ensure the show is up to the quality of the game, and will not suffer the video-game curse that has plagued more or less every Hollywood adaptation of a major video-game to date (I don’t care about foreign box-office returns, a terrible movie is a terrible movie. I’m looking at you ‘Warcraft.’) I personally am just fine with waiting a little longer for Spielberg and company to get all their ducks in a row before pushing out the ‘Halo’ series and I am hoping when they are ready, it lives up to the high expectations that fans are definitely going to bring with them.
