The film inspired by the Halo game franchise, to be produced by Peter Jackson’s Wingnut Films and directed by Neill Blomkamp, has officially been put on hold as producers search for a new studio.
The film adaptation of Halo has suffered through a rocky couple of weeks on the heels of Universal’s and Fox’s decision to pull support as a result of budget concerns. Microsoft and Wingnut pledged to continue work on the film while shopping for a new studio, but today’s announcement seems to indicate either that the search has not been going as well as planned or the impact of losing the studios was more strongly felt than initially thought.
An official statement from Wingnut said, “As was previously confirmed, we deeply regret that both Universal and Fox did not choose to move forward with financing the Halo film under the original terms of the agreement. At this time Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, along with their partner, Microsoft, have mutually agreed to postpone making a feature film based on the Halo video game universe until we can fulfill the promise we made to millions of Halo fans throughout the world that we would settle for no less than bringing a first class film to the big screen. We are fully supportive of director Neill Blomkamp’s vision of the film. Neill is a tremendously gifted filmmaker and his preliminary work on Halo is truly awe-inspiring. While it will undoubtedly take a little longer for Halo to reach the big screen, we are confident that the final feature film will be well worth the wait.”
