Paramount+ 'Halo': Why did the TV series take the Marvel Studios route?
It's a no-brainer that 'Halo' has been one of the more successful video game franchises. Creating a TV series based on the game and the fandom comes with certain challenges and one of them is sticking to the original material or using parts of it and branching out to tell a new story — something that we saw in Matt Reeves 'Batman' and generally a template that most MCU films follow. The Paramount+ series premiering this month takes a similar route.
'Halo' went through production hell and showrunners Steven Kane and Kyle Killen reportedly decided to avoid consulting the game in their attempt to make the series. For those unaware, 'Halo' was slated to be made into a movie, however, issues arose when Microsoft was too keen and invested in the game's backstory. This saw 343 and Spielberg's production company, Amblin, take the Marvel route of drawing heavily from history, but spin a new story to it.
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Per Slashfilm, Kane explained that they never felt limited by 'Halo' is a game. "We didn't look at the game. We didn't talk about the game. We talked about the characters and the world. So I never felt limited by it being a game." Kiki Wolfkill, the executive co-producer added, "Early on, we were thinking about doing something that could tie very closely with the game. What we were finding was, trying to verbatim stay with everything that'd come before wasn't serving the medium. It also wasn't serving the creative teams and their need to express a story and build the world through their eyes."
This comes across as good news to those who have never seen or heard much of 'Halo' the game and doesn't necessarily require them to do much homework. The same was mentioned in our spoiler-free review where we deduced it to be a prequel of sorts.
The official synopsis reads, "In its adaptation for Paramount+, HALO will take place in the universe that first came to be in 2001 with the launch of Xbox®’s first “Halo” game. Dramatizing an epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant, HALO the series will weave deeply drawn personal stories with action, adventure, and a richly imagined vision of the future.
"The series stars Pablo Schreiber (“American Gods”) as the Master Chief, Spartan-117; Natascha McElhone (“Californication”) as Dr. Halsey, the brilliant, conflicted, and inscrutable creator of the Spartan super-soldiers; and Jen Taylor (“Halo” game series, RWBY) as Cortana, the most advanced AI in human history, and potentially the key to the survival of the human race. Additional stars include Bokeem Woodbine (“Fargo”), Shabana Azmi (“Fire”), Natasha Culzac (“The Witcher”), Olive Gray (“Half Moon Investigations”), Yerin Ha (“Reef Break”), Bentley Kalu (“Avengers: Age of Ultron”), Kate Kennedy (“Catastrophe”), Charlie Murphy (“Peaky Blinders”) and Danny Sapani ("Penny Dreadful").
'Halo' premieres March 24 on Paramount+.