Halo debuted in 2001 and became an instant hit.
The game was so popular, in fact, that fans around the world clamoured for a movie based on the hit game.
But it was never meant to be, largely because it was too expensive to make, even with Peter Jackson as its producer ("The Adventures of Tintin") and Neil Blomkamp ("District 9") and Guillermo Del Toro slated to direct. Screenwriter Stuart Beattie ("Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl"), an avid gamer himself took to write the Halo script but it failed to materialize.
It is very difficult to adapt a video game into a movie, there have been some crossovers made but like the case of Prince of Persia, they have not been successful.
Del Toro told Collider that D.B.Weiss wrote the screenplay for Halo, "I thought he did a fantastic job."
"It's very hard to replicate, in a linear narrative, what makes an immersive narrative like a video game work," Del Toro said .
This is also the reason why a movie gets two hours to tell the story whereas in the game you can sit for hours or even days together.
"I think Halo is perfect to be recreated in movie form, but there are not many properties that are that translatable... because the avatar you play with in a video game is a character, and at the same time a character you complete - it's a very strange symbiosis that happens in video games, you become a character," Del Toro said.
In late 2007, the movie project was declared dead. However, Machinima is working on a live-action Halo web series that'll be recut as a 90-minute film.
Today, advancements in CGI can replicate the graphics and bring them to life on the film screens. Games are getting more realistic and writing for games has never been better, but there hasn't yet been a great game that has been made into a great movie.
Sam Raimi, famed for his cult Evil Dead series and the blockbuster "Spiderman" series might be giving a cinematic narrative to World of Warcraft film, which has been in the talks. But the biggest obstacle is the cost which may hit over $100 million even before the cast is hired.
