Halo Film Dumped By Studios

Posted on October 20, 2006

In a shocking development, the film studios have dumped the highly-anticipated film version of the video game, Halo. It appears that the dispute was about money.

In a surprise move, both Universal and Fox have pulled out of their agreement to co-finance a movie version of Microsoft's Halo SF video game, Variety reported. Rumors had circulated that the studios were concerned over a budget that was rising above the original projected $135 million pricetag. But the filmmakers said the double defection came after Universal and Fox played hardball and unsuccessfully tried to get the filmmakers and Microsoft to reduce their profit participation, the trade paper reported.
The studios made the pay cut demand as an Oct. 15 deadline approached. On that day Microsoft was to have received the bulk of a promised $5 million up-front payday. The software giant also stood to receive 10 percent of gross revenues for rights to the game and a script by Alex Garland, the trade paper reported. Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh were on board as executive producers. They denied through representatives rumors that the budget had ballooned to around $200 million, Variety reported. Mary Parent, Scott Stuber and Peter Schlessel are producers.
Microsoft is already in talks with other distribution partners. Prep work on the film continues. Most of the preproduction is being done at Jackson and Walsh's visual-effects studios in New Zealand, Weta Digital and Weta Workshop. As word of the Universal and Fox exit spread, speculation centered around the inexperience of Halo director Neill Blomkamp, a 27-year-old first-time feature director.

So, the studios dumped the film after "Universal and Fox played hardball and unsuccessfully tried to get the filmmakers and Microsoft to reduce their profit participation"? They thought they were going to get Microsoft to reduce its profit participation? Talk about your unreasonable expectations.

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