2006-08-09 19:28:21 Halo Director Announced!

First time motion picture director Neill Blomkamp will head the Halo movie. You've probably already seen some of his work, the most likely one being the Citroen transforming car advert but these are pretty popular shorts that a lot of people have seen around the internet...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=snfc_wNWqSU - Third World Robocop

http://youtube.com/watch?v=iNReejO7Zu8 - Alive In Joberg

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Jmd8BDiB-qU - Yellow (Adicolor)

I know a lot of people will be unsure because he hasn't directed a feature yet, but his approach to action and superb handling of integrated CG means I have HIGH hopes for this movie! :)

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/news/2006/0809...

2006-08-09 20:01:16

These videos are great. Hopefully MC won't put off his helmet in the movie anyway.

2006-08-09 20:15:09

Is the date being firmly set in 2008 now? I also heard the budget was around $75M which isn't super high.

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2006-08-09 20:20:45

2008 gives them time to finish the prequel game using the Halo 3 engine! ;)

$75m is the number banded around originally but with Jackson and WETA on board they might stretch it a bit higher than that!

2006-08-09 20:21:43

Lets hope $175M ;)

Edit: Interesting videos. In the Yellow video the robot guy looks like he has "Life" or "Living" in Hebrew written on his left cheek. I could not quite make out the word on his left neck but on his right neck it looks like Hebrew for "four". Interesting.

I noticed in the 3 shorts there is a theme VERY similar to the Halo universe. You have aliens and cybernetics--no wonder they chose this guy!

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Now that I retired I can play more MGS games.

2006-08-09 21:07:18

$75M is a bit tight, but I remember Starship Troopers costed around $50M... and it's still better than Silent Hill's $40M budget.

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2006-08-09 21:15:14

He can do comedy aswell!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ev9SY2hxIr0 - Tempbot

2006-08-09 21:17:17

That third world robocop wasn't comedy? :)

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2006-08-09 21:23:55

Those short films are excellent!

2006-08-09 22:11:32 In reply to Slabs (2006-08-09 20:20:45)

It's sad that it cost so much to just do a movie, wars have been fought for less :(

2006-08-09 23:07:42 In reply to El_Cadz (2006-08-09 21:23:55)

Now let's just hope he can make a feature film.

2006-08-09 23:35:44 In reply to GriftGFX (2006-08-09 23:07:42)

If he sticks to the script it should be killer. The script was great IMO.

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Now that I retired I can play more MGS games.

2006-08-09 23:41:41 In reply to Acert93 (2006-08-09 23:35:44)

You actually read the leak? What fun is that? Plus, you know they're doing at least one re-write of the script before they go into production, right? Plus, the director (and cast) of a movie can easily take a good script and make a bad movie--it happens :P

I love Halo's lore, but I'm skeptical..everyone hyped Silent Hill to holy hell and back--and ya know what? It's a pretty mediocre movie--then again as a measurement of a videogame film, mediocre is probably a complement.

2006-08-09 23:51:48

My thought, he is better choice than Ridley Scott. This movie must be different, unusual, nonHollywood. He can also do some damage with small money (as seen from youtube).

2006-08-09 23:59:24

Ridley Scott's directed a couple of the greatest sci-fi pictures ever though; and I really don't think it's fair to call Blade Runner and Alien your standard Hollywood fair..really, really unfair to even compare someone who has never done a feature film to someone who has one of the greatest track records ever.

2006-08-10 00:20:09 In reply to GriftGFX (2006-08-09 23:41:41)

Sadly that happens a LOT.I agree, although there is always hope that Halo could be like X-men -- a step in the right direction of doing them right. Halo, as you noted, as a long history of lore and rich background, so that helps.

The other thing going for it is MS was very, very picky about who picked it up, who wrote it, etc. They have Peter Jackson on board (who was not super well known before LotR either) so there is always a chance. THIN chance... but we can hope. I hate it when movies of games are bad...

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Now that I retired I can play more MGS games.

2006-08-10 00:32:09 In reply to GriftGFX (2006-08-09 23:59:24)

I know who Ridley is, i am his great fan, but... alien and br are past tense now (25 years or so), and while Black hawk was good (and perhaps first half hour of Hannibal (dante, florence etc.)), i am not so impressed with everything else by him. Is Ridley one the greatest? Yes, but that is not enough. This movie must be different.

2006-08-10 00:42:36

Third World Robocop and Alive in Joberg where really really good! They have the right feeling..
Also is it just me or does these two videos remind me a bit of Metal Gear Solid 4
If there was ever gonna bee a metal gear solid movie! this Driector should be the one for it!

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2006-08-10 06:08:26 In reply to Slabs (2006-08-09 21:15:14)

At the very end, where is the bot working at? Is it like the future, where all the workers are bots or is it he's just working in a different company.

2006-08-10 10:55:53 In reply to Eddy186 (2006-08-10 06:08:26)

Just at a different company I think, he is a Temp after all.

2006-08-10 12:35:29

Great films, this boosts my confidence that Halo won't suck too much!

I think it's really good that there's some new talent directing halo, it will give the film the chance to suprise us all by being something fresh.

2006-08-10 12:36:48

Yeah, i saw a link to it on HBO yesterday.

With all the talent they have got so far for this movie (WETA, Peter Jackson, Alex Garland, and recently Neill Blomkamp) i think they would have to seriously mess up on casting and execution to make a bad film. And i don't think MS/Bungie would allow that!

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2006-08-10 14:53:38

I just wish ILM was doing the VFX. Pirates of the Carribean 2 had amazing VFX. The squids tentacles and Davey Jones looked real. I read that they didn't even use prosthetics but had the actor doing his scenes normally in mocap suit. I liked the VFX in King Kong, but compared to ILM's best (when they're paid by other filmmakers, not George Lucas, who's cheap) they trounce WETA. Ironically, its possible that Peter Jackson and George Lucas are both cheap, and WETA is talented but underpaid by their owner to do work. I've only seen their work when working on PJ films, so we'll have to see.

I think they picked the best unheard of Director out there, and he looks like this is his genre of movie to make. Hopefully he'll make WETA work harder, because of his strong VFX background.

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2006-08-10 19:25:17

The thing that I really think he might do trouble in is combat. The combat in his videos look really iffy.

2006-08-10 19:59:51

ILM better than WETA? I find that hard to agree with after comparing Gollum to.. pretty much anything ILM can throw at it. In fact, the LoTR films on a whole look more believable than any over exposed CG blob ILM has going for it. Sure their stuff looks cool, but not even half realistic.

I think this director seems like a very interesting pick because of the way he doesn't "notice" the effects with the camera. It just sort of plays like any part of the scenery in a really believable way. That was a big difference between Singer and Ratner's Xmen films, where the third one got incredibly keen on zooming in on every single *cool effect* in it.

For Halo to be really really cool I think it needs that kind of nonchalance towards visual effects, and when Banshees come flying past above the action, we need someone who has the sense to think "this is normal to these people, so the film should reflect that".

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