In 2005, the only thing movie blogs wanted to talk about was Halo. The massive video game series, which revolutionized the gaming world and spawned the sea of first-person shooters about big men in big spacesuits, seemed like a natural fit for Hollywood, boasting a strong story and the promise of a lot of action. The script, written by 28 Days Later screenwriter Alex Garland, sold to 20th Century Fox and Universal Studios, who were going to co-produce, and Peter Jackson, hot off of The Lord of the Rings, was quickly attached the project. Then everything fell apart.
So what happened to a movie that seemed like a can't miss blockbuster? Wired has an excerpt from Generation XBox: How Video Games Invaded Hollywood that details what, exactly, went wrong but you will be surprised to hear that the short version is basically, money. Also a culture clash between Hollywood and the video game industry, but mainly, the money.
What the article doesn't answer, and what I hope the book looks at, is why, exactly, it is so hard to make a good movie based on a video game. It seems like it may stem from a misunderstanding of how storytelling is accomplished through video games; how much of development and character is based on the notion of play. Removing that core element of how games function from a story (like in the translation from video game to film) hollows out the story. Just like how turning books or comics into film requires more finesse than simply transcribing what is already on the page (no matter what Gary Ross or Zack Snyder tell you), so does adapting video games require an understanding of what happens to a story when you take it from one medium to another.
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[Why the Halo Movie Failed to Launch]
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