Showtime is drawing closer on delivering their live-action adaptation of ‘Halo‘ and now director Rupert Wyatt (‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’,’Captive State’) is opening up as to why he left the series. ‘Halo’ is the most ambition television series which has been given the green light by Showtime and is easily a series that could push forward a director’s career, even one with the pedigree that Wyatt already has.
So why did he end up leaving? There wasn’t drama involved as it looks like the primary reason boiled down to scheduling issues which is what let Otto Bathurst (‘Robin Hood’) take over as the principal director.
According to Wyatt:
“I got involved, I knew very little about Halo—same as I knew very little about Planet of the Apes when I got involved—and I kind of steeped myself in the mythology and began to realize how much incredible literature there was and the depth of the storytelling, and it all stacked up for me. There was an incredible foundation for the storytelling, so it was gangbusters. I was super excited. In short, I think if I had come at it from an earlier perspective from the building of it then perhaps it would have gone differently, but as a director of a TV show, it’s quite hard to sort of become a creative architect of a show. I think in a way I was never gonna be that, and that’s fine because there are really many talented people involved in that show who are doing that job.”
Due to the extended time required for developing the series, Wyatt just wasn’t able to commit to the series when Showtime pushed back the timeline.
“So it became clear that there was gonna be more time needed, I’m talking some months if not years, to align—as you probably know it’s massively ambitious, so the budget for that really needs to align with the scripts. We were still kind of working on that, but it ultimately wasn’t under my watch to be able to find that alignment. So there was a choice made by Showtime which was essentially to push things, and if I had been perhaps been the showrunner then I would have stayed on that journey for two or three years, but as a director of a finite number of episodes, there’s other things I really wanna do. So I was very sad to leave, but basically, it wasn’t within the framework that I originally signed up for.”
This is an understandable reaction from Wyatt. Had he been the showrunner and more intimately involved with the project, it likely would have fueled his passion for remaining attached to it. However, not being able to make some of the more significant calls about what went on in the series just wasn’t an attractive prospect for the director.
Would you have loved to see an iteration of ‘Halo’ directed by Rupert Wyatt? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Source: Collider
