MAF rejoices - new Halo flick an adaptation of Nylund's "Fall of Reach"

[The Fake Shemp]

By El Mayimbe on August 4, 2008

I just got back in to NYC after staying in Los Angeles for a week after Comic Con.  Yes, I felt that nasty Earthquake.  The con and especially the WRATH OF CON PARTY were a blast.  I left the con inspired, so I decided to go on a little stealth mission all around L.A. and hit up my sources to see what I can dig up comic book and/or sci-fi related.  I got a bunch of goodies for fans this week.

Ok, so Halo…

The HALO movie in it’s current incarnation, the one that we all know publicly about, the one involving FOX/UNIVERSAL, Peter Jackson, Neil Blomkamp, with the script by Garland and rewritten by DB Weiss…

…is completely dead in Hollywood.  That project will never happen.  Everybody involved has already moved on.

But, then we discovered and broke that screenwriter Stuart Beattie decided to do something about it. He started over fresh and wrote a spec script based on the best selling novel HALO: FALL OF REACH. 

Halo: The Fall of Reach is a 2001 science fiction novel by Eric Nylund based on the Halo series of video games and acts as a prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved, the first game in the series. It is set in the fictional Halo universe, taking place in the 26th century across several planets and locations. The novel details the events which led up to the game and explains the origins of the SPARTAN II super soldiers, narrating the story of the series protagonist, the Master Chief.

Stuart Beattie’s script is very real and out there floating around in Hollywood folks.  How real?  Well, there has been concept art made by conceptual artist Kasra Farahani (WOLF MAN, HANCOCK, SPIDERMAN 3) for certain scenes of the new HALO: FALL OF REACH script as part of an eventual presentation to Microsoft.  From what I’m told, the presentation is very cool!

There are some big time professionals in Hollywood who are also Halo fans that want to see the movie made.  I scored five pieces of the concept art and will be releasing them on a weekly basis for the next five weeks.  From what I know, this particular scene takes place halfway through the proposed script and yes that’s Master Chief in the middle.

Concept Art:

[Mr. Gundam]

That's concept art? Looks like bad fanart.

"Halo painted on black velvet."

[duckman2000]

That's concept art? Looks like bad fanart.

So, a bit like Halo art then?

[Bocsius]

Not buying it.

And do not want. Hollywood, leave games alone.

As a matter of fact, Hollywood, leave film alone.

[laesperanzapaz]

1997 wants its FMV back

[Madrun Badrun]

What's the Latino Review doing out in space? 

[MrAngryFace]

Nylund writes decent sci fi. His space battle stuff tends to read better than his ground pounding segments in the first halo book, but he improves quite a bit as the books progress.

[MrAngryFace]

One of the best parts of the books is when Chief sky dives to a planet without a chute. hardcore? yes.

[Tabasco]

Fall of Reach is so good.  No brutes.  Elites as badass enemies.  Space battles.  Hopefully Freddie Prinze Jr and Matthew Lillard have some form of a cameo.  And sexy, naked Cortana.

[MrAngryFace]

One of the best parts of the books is when Chief sky dives to a planet without a chute. hardcore? yes.

Yeah, okay I'll buy that. Still, it looks like they're flying.

His armor was seriously fucked after the drop lol, but it was a cool part of the book.

[fistfulofmetal]

I support this idea. I am not ashamed to say that I have read the first 3 Halo books, and Fall of Reach is by far the best.

[Tabasco]

I know that the Spartans have

spoiler (click to show/hide)

vastly increased bone and muscle strength and improved healing

[close]

plus some damn good armor, but I really can't see how even all that would allow you to survive not only a ton of atmospheric friction, but the impact of falling into a planet's surface at terminal velocity.

Also, does anyone know what exactly caused the first Halo movie project to get scrapped?

There's never been anything official.  Most of the rumors online were that the studios thought Blomkamp was too inexperienced to be working on such an expensive film.

But there's also the thing where Peter Jackson has burned a lot of bridges* in Hollywood over LotR and King Kong.  And after all that talk of PJ's Halo, Bungie has made it clear that they aren't making his Halo game anymore, if they ever were.  So it's possible the guy is just an ass to work with, and that's why he's not doing anything with the film.

*All I know about PJ is from gossip surrounding Halo movies.  IGN probably isn't the best source for Hollywood gossip, so if I have gotten my PJ facts, I won't be at all offended if I'm corrected.

[border]

Also, does anyone know what exactly caused the first Halo movie project to get scrapped?

I would put the blame on Microsoft's arrogance.  They demanded large shares of all merchandising rights, but expected the studios to bankroll the movie all by themselves.  The script wasn't that great either.  After it got picked up they immediately had someone re-write it.

What boggles the mind is that MS could just make the movie on their own, and not have to rely on some studio.  I don't see why they insisted on playing hardball with Hollywood.

[duckman2000]

What boggles the mind is that MS could just make the movie on their own, and not have to rely on some studio.  I don't see why they insisted on playing hardball with Hollywood.

Probably because MS knows jack shit about making, distributing or marketing movies.

[border]

That's why they would hire experts to produce and direct the film, then sell the finished product to a studio for distribution and marketing.  Just like every other independent film.

[WrikaWrek]

What boggles the mind is that MS could just make the movie on their own, and not have to rely on some studio.  I don't see why they insisted on playing hardball with Hollywood.

Probably because MS knows jack shit about making, distributing or marketing movies.

They should just partner with Marvel to do it, like the did with the comic books. A halo movie would be awesome, and what sucks is that some pretty high dolla talent in hollywood wants to work on it and has tried to work on it, unlike a certain other gaming IP that keeps being thrown around but gets barelly any attention from the top dogs.

Meh, who cares, if cowboy bebop with Keanu goes ahead i will be happy enough.

[Tauntaun]

   

Nylund Halo Books

I would totally love to see this done right.

[Tieno]

Fall of Reach would make a  cool movie, with taking away john (master chief) and training him. All pretty cool stuff for a sci-fi movie

[siamesedreamer]

Yes!