I was surprised and fairly discouraged to see reports yesterday that the Halo movie adaptation had been scrapped. I was hoping that with Peter Jackson taking the lead as executive producer, "Halo" had a good chance of becoming really the only good video game movie adapted by Hollywood. I didn't like Halo the game much (in fact I frequently rate it as one of the most overrated titles ever) but I was still excited to see what Jackson could do with a film treatment.

The news broke Friday that the two studios behind Halo, Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox, had backed out of the project this month. According to various reports, Universal and Fox got spooked over the film's rising budget - more than $140 million - and the fact that a first-time director, Neill Blomkamp, was going to helm the movie, which was scheduled for a 2008 release (I have a feeling the picture to right is a fan-created poster since it says 2007). Apparently complicating matters was the fact that the studios wanted Jackson and Microsoft to reduce their cuts of the potential profits of the film.

Isn't Hollywood just grand?

Anyway, the studios pulled out, and soon headlines were popping up everywhere that "Halo" had been cancelled, which wasn't actually true. First, Microsoft issued a statement that it would continue to work with Jackson and were already in discussions with new studios. Then some news trickled out of the Screenwriting Expo in Los Angeles yesterday. During a superb talk between famed science fiction author Harlan Ellison and "Battlestar Galactica's" Ronald Moore (more on that excellent discussion later), Ellison pointed out one of the members of the audience: screenwriter Josh Olson, who penned the Academy Award- nominated adaptation for "A History of Violence" (which was controversial because it featured major changes from the original graphic novel, but that's another story).

Ellison noted that Olson was scheduled to work with Jackson on "Halo." Ellison, who Olson counts as one of his biggest inspirations, told the audience "Mr. Olson is off tonight to go to work with Peter Jackson in New Zealand. He's doing the screenplay for Halo."

This is an exciting development, for me at least. I absolutely loved "A History of Violence" and prefer Olson's screenplay to John Wagner's graphic novel. Plus, "Halo" sounds like it could use some good writing. Originally, the "Halo" screenplay was written by novelist and screenwriter Alex Garland (The Beach, "28 Days Later"). Then another writer, D.B. Weiss, was brought in to draw up a new script. Weiss had authored the 2003 novel Lucky Wander Boy, an interesting story about young man obsessed with video games, but "Halo" was poised to be his first movie screenplay.
First time director. First time screenwriter. Sound the alarm!

Okay, let's not push the panic button yet. According to Ellison, Olson is on his way to New Zealand as I write this blog post to hopefully pull Halo out of the fire. If he and Jackson can get a good script together, I have a feeling that the rest of the pieces will fall into place. Cross your fingers, Master Chief.