Well color me totally fricken stunned! It seems that Peter Jackson has signed on to be an executive producer for the upcoming Halo Movie. Yes that’s right… Peter Jackson. After I swore there was no way in Hell Jackson would direct Halo… here he is.
Now, don’t get too excited just yet. Peter Jackson is NOT directing Halo (which is what I said he would never do) even though some sites are reporting him as directing… he’s not. He’s on as an Executive Producer… and that can mean NOTHING at all. For all we know Jackson won’t even look at the script or actually do anything on the film at all.
What was even BIGGER news is that WETA (the visual effects wizards who did Lord of the Rings is apparently on the Halo team now as well. Like I said in the opening… I AM STUNNED. The good folks over at Bungie have this:
Yes. The Peter Jackson, Executive Producing the Halo film. Needless to say I and the rest of Bungie are positively incontinent (Marty especially). But what really knocks us on our asses is we’re also getting the combined talent of the mighty men and women of WETA in the bargain. From fabricating Covenant weapons to building life-sized Forerunner structures to accomplishing shot after shot of complex live-action/CG integration – simply put, there’s no group of people we’d rather have realize the Halo universe on screen.
This is huge for Halo. I never thought in a million years that someone like Peter Jackson would even lend his name to a project like this one (and remember… lending his name may very well be all that he’s doing for Halo). Halo fans should look at this as nothing but positive news.
I still have massive massive doubts that this project will be any good at all… but it certainly just took a giant step in the right direction. I COULD be eating crow before the end of 2007. We’ll see.
