Halo Movie Revealed: Chris Hemsworth Would Be Master Chief in Film Version of Halo

Culture

With yesterday’s announcement that Prometheus and Inglorius Basterds star Michael Fassbender will play the sleek killer in the film version of the Assassin’s Creed video game, speculation has turned to which video game will hit the big screen next.

This week’s Comic-Con event only whets the appetite. Could we see a Mortal Kombat remake? Hopefully they don’t do an Angry Birds any time soon.

But the game-to-movie that everyone wants made, and nobody is talking about, is Halo. The massively popular first-person shooter will release its newest installment (Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn) later this year, which is expected to once again rake in the millions of dollars for parent company Microsoft.

In anticipation, the PR team has already released two live-action trailers setting up the new game. 

Since Halo 2, Microsoft has regularly teased Halo fans with high-quality, gritty, live-action trailers depicting the Halo universe. These have only made the call for a full-length Halo blockbuster even louder. In 2005, Microsoft sought to push a script (penned for $1 million by Alex Garland of 28 Days Later and The Beach fame) to studios with Peter Jackson as the director, but the deal fell through.

But what would the film look like? Who would play in the key rolls? What would the story line be? More importantly, who would direct it?

Get ready, Halo fans. Here is the fantasy breakdown you all have been waiting for.

Plot: Set nearly 500 years in the future, mankind has colonized vast swaths of the galaxy. Near the edge of known territory, humans come into contact with a genocidal alien race known as the Covenant. The film opens with the Covenant’s largest-yet attack on a human planet — the invasion of Reach.  

A United Nation Space Command corvette — the Pillar of Autumn — narrowly escapes the attack, shooting into unknown slip space with a Covenant battle ship — the Truth and Reconciliation — hot on its tail. Both vessels emerge from slip space near an artificial ring world, known as “Halo.” The Pillar of Autumn, after sustaining heavy damage in an orbital battle, crash-lands on the world. The Covenant, though, don’t seem interested in finishing off the surviving humans, and instead seem to focus their attention on unlocking Halo’s mystery.

Some critical story-telling details:

The film centers on a surviving group of UNSC marines and crew, with camera angles and a frantic story pace resembling a sci-fi version of Blackhawk Down. The Spartan super soldier known as Master Chief is only a secondary focus in the film, and he is rarely shown in detail, almost like the shark in Jaws.

The film contains flashbacks to key characters’ pasts in UNSC bootcamp, on Reach, and other encounters with the Covenant ... just like this: 

Visual effects: No quiet Avatar, the Halo movie would rely less on computer animation. Covenant aliens would get computer touch-ups, but the Halo world would hardly be an expansive CGI landscape. Think more the organic scenes in Prometheus. Easter eggs (hidden eye candy) would fill the movie.

It would, of course, be featured in 3D.

Director: J.J. Abrams. The film would be fast-paced, but would also not completely fall into those dark, moody depths of space war science fiction. Fun at times, serious at others, there would also be a philosophical question to ponder in the piece.

Cast:

Cortana: Nina Dobrev (The Vampire Diaries)

Master Chief:  Chris Hemsworth (Thor)

343 Guilty Spark: Jared Harris (voice) (Mad Men)

Covenant Commander (the Arbiter):  Raymond Park (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace)

Jacob Keyes: Sean Bean (Game of Thrones)

Miranda Keyes: Alexis Bledel (Mad Men)

UNSC Marine Sgt. Avery Johnson: Mekhi Phifer (8 Mile)

Tartarus: Stephen Lang (Avatar)

 

Can't wait for the Halo movie now, right? Lets hope it doesn't take Hollywood much longer.