Steven Spielberg's HALO Series Will Tell a Brand New Story But Master Chief Will Be The Star
A month ago Showtime picked up Steven Spielberg's Halo series and ordered ten-episodes. Spielberg's Amblin TV is producing the series along with Awake creator Kyle Killen and Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt. Killen will serve as showrunner and Wyatt will direct multiple episodes.
Some new details have surfaced for the series that fans might be happy to hear. The series will tell a brand new story that will not be based on any of the games. That story is said to be set in the 26th-century and will deal with the conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant. You'll also be happy to know that Master Chief will have a lead role in the series. When asked about Master Chief's role, President of Programming at Showtime Gary Levin said:
"It is a key question and an important part of our series is all I say. He is a lead character."
He went on to explain:
"It is a new story, but we are being incredibly respectful of the canon and working with Microsoft 343 people to be sure we don’t violate any of that. We made a conscious decision to hire a writer not known for sci-fi or big battle movies because that’s already baked into the Halo franchise and we will service that but we also wanted to make sure we were getting underneath the armor of the spartans to the human drama, so it felt like it belonged on Showtime. Our hope is it will appeal to Halo fans and Showtime drama fans."
Levin goes on to talk about Kyle Killen and why he thinks that he the right talent to bring this franchise to life::
“Again, I think it’s about the writing. I think Kyle Killen is a really deep interesting character writer. The premise for us was always it needs to stand alongside our other Showtime shows and look like it belongs there while at the same time servicing the fans of this enormous franchise. We don’t worry about the odds. We just plow ahead and we’re very optimistic.”
As far as the genre goes, Showtime CEO David Nevins says that the series will be rooted more in the sci-fi genre, and not so much fantasy.
"I’ve seen scripts. I think it’s a very different genre. It is futuristic space based science fiction. It’s not fantasy. There’s been one iconic franchise in my opinion in the history of television in that category and that’s Star Trek. Probably 10 or 12 of the top 20 movies of all time are futuristic sci-fi. It’s weird that television hasn’t turned up those kinds of franchises. It was a long time to get the script where we felt we had something really interesting and felt like it belonged on Showtime in terms of its character depth. It’s going to be a big show."
He went on to give credit to Battlestar Galactica for delivering an amazing show. It's definitely a series to look up to when developing a show like Halo. Levin says that Halo will be an "enormous undertaking" and it will be set on several foreign planet locations all of which will be shot on a studio backlot. With so much work to be done on the series, we shouldn't expect to see it premiere until 2020.
Source: /Film