Tag: Halo

Posted on in News, Television News

Burn Gorman From ‘Pacific Rim’ & ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Confirms Role In ‘Halo’ Series At Paramount+

We’ve been excited to see some first-look footage from the new live-action Halo series from Amblin that will air sometime in 2022. Halo’s cast consists of Pablo Schriber as Master Chief, Bookem Woodbine, Charlie Murphy, Olive Gray, Kate Kennedy, Yerin Ha, Jen Taylor, Shabana Azmi, Bentley Kalu, Natasha Culzac, and Danny Spani.

Based on the iconic Xbox franchise, Halo’s epic universe and cast of characters comes to life in this new original drama series. Halo reinvented how people think about video games and has grown into a global entertainment phenomenon, having sold more than 81 million copies worldwide. In the new television series adaptation, HALO will take place in the universe that first came to be in 2001, dramatizing an epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant. HALO will weave deeply drawn personal stories with action, adventure and a richly imagined vision of the future.

Otto Bathurst, Jonathan Liebesman, Roel Reine, and Jessica Lowery are directing various episodes.

Interestingly enough, British actor Burn Gorman had announced his involvement with Halo back in May on Instagram, while in Budapest (that people seemingly missed) and his agency Hamilton Hodell lists his character as Vishner. Gorman’s credits include Matthew Vaughn’s Layer Cake, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim, and HBO’s Game of Thrones.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CO1C6aRASba/

It’s been an abnormally long production for everyone involved with Halo due to the pandemic that started back in the fall of 2019 and only recently wrapped, which likely has exhausted a lot of people involved with Halo. It’s crew includes production designer Sophie Becher (Mars) alongside cinematographer Karl Walter Lindenlaub (Stargate, Independence Day, Black Book, Ninja Assassin) handling the bulk of the show’s episodes. There is also the expectation the action will be great after hiring stunt coordinator Tom Struthers, who has a laundry list of credits such as The Dark Knight, Dunkirk, Dune, Inception, and The Dark Knight Rises.

SOURCE: BURN GORMAN & HAMILTON HODELL

Posted on in Television News

‘Halo’ Showrunner Steven Kane Exiting Paramount+ Series Once Season 1 Is Complete

One of the more interesting video game adaptations is a new live-action series based on Microsoft’s Halo franchise from Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television, the project having multiple production shake-ups from losing director M.J. Bassett and even one of it’s showrunners Kyle Killen.

Well, even before it has aired on Paramount+ after switching from Showtime, the sci-fi series has lost a second showrunner. Variety reports that Steven Kane (The Last Ship) is exiting once Season 1 has been completed, star Pablo Schreiber (plays Master Chief) had teased on Instagram that filming in Budapest, Hungary, was wrapping-up and has since been travelling with family.

Halo’s cast also consists of Bookem Woodbine, Charlie Murphy, Olive Gray, Kate Kennedy, Yerin Ha, Jen Taylor, Shabana Azmi, Bentley Kalu, Natasha Culzac, and Danny Spani.

Otto Bathurst, Jonathan Liebesman, Roel Reine, and Jessica Lowery are directing various episodes.

Amblin could certainly find a new showrunner to handle Season 2, but there hasn’t even been a sign that Halo is even going to get a second season. The show I imagine is extremely pricey as it filmed in Budapest where other high-profile sci-fi projects have shot such as Blade Runner 2049, Terminator: Dark Fate, and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune remake. It’ll be interesting to see how audiences react to the series when it debuts on Paramount+ in 2022 and if it becomes their flagship series at Paramount+ or they simply finish with a single season.

In the meantime, it was announced that Amblin would partnering with Netflix on a wave of new feature films and The Ronin revealed that Halo director Otto Bathurst is attached to helm/produce an Aurthian show Warlord Chronicles for Epix based on the Bernard Cornwell novels. This development came after his period gangster series Peaky Blinders has ended it’s run. So, it might be difficult to coax Bathurst to return as well.

It’s been an abnormally long production for everyone involved with Halo due to the pandemic that started back in the fall of 2019 and only recently wrapped, which likely has exhausted a lot of people involved with Halo. It’s crew includes production designer Sophie Becher (Mars) alongside cinematographer Karl Walter Lindenlaub (Stargate, Independence Day, Black Book, Ninja Assassin) handling the bulk of the show’s episodes. There is also the expectation the action will be great after hiring stunt coordinator Tom Struthers, who has a laundry list of credits such as The Dark Knight, Dunkirk, Dune, Inception, and The Dark Knight Rises.

SOURCE: VARIETY

Posted on in Television News

EXCLUSIVE: Otto Bathurst Attached To Direct & Produce Arthurian Series ‘Warlord Chronicles’ For Epix

Back in January 2020, TV Line reported that Epix will be developing a series, Warlord Chronicles, based on The Warlord Trilogy from author Bernard Cornwell. The three books that take place within the world of King Arthur are titled The Winter King, Enemy of God, and Excalibur.

The Ronin has since learned that Otto Bathurst is attached to Warlord Chronicles as both director and producer. Otto’s experience with television includes shows such as Peaky Blinders, Black Mirror, His Dark Materials, and the Amblin Television live-action Halo series that will air on Paramount+ in 2022.

THE WINTER KING – A former warrior sworn to Arthur and now an elderly monk, Derfel tells the story of how Arthur became a warlord in Dark Age Britain despite illegitimacy to the throne. After being banished to Armorica by his father, the High King Uther Pendragon, Arthur returns to protect the new king, his infant nephew Mordred.

Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe novels was developed into a British television series starring Game of Thrones star Sean Bean and The Saxon series adapted into Netflix’s The Last Kingdom.

It was recently announced that Bathurst’s BBC London gangster series Peaky Blinders starring Cillian Murphy would be ending after Season 6 as mentioned by outlets like Variety.

Posted on in Television News

‘Halo’: Pablo Schreiber Teases The Paramount+ Series Has Finally Wrapped Filming

A few months back, it was announced that a brand new live-action Halo series from Amblin Television would be moving from Showtime to Paramount’s streaming service Paramount+, formerly known as CBS All Access.

An epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant. Halo will weave deeply drawn personal stories with action, adventure and a richly imagined vision of the future.

The sci-fi streaming series will see Den of Thieves and American Gods actor Pablo Schreiber (younger brother of Liev Schreiber) playing Master Chief in the 10-episode run.

The Canadian actor has been posting regularly on his Instagram account giving fans updates on Halo’s shoot. Cameras eventually started rolling again last November as announced by the actor and it looks like things have wrapped or are about to, thanks to the latest Instagram post from Schreiber teasing he’s about to leave Budapest, Hungary.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CPyLSZYBBm-/

Budapest stages have been previously used for high-profile sci-fi projects such as Blade Runner 2049 and Dune.

We should expect some high-level action sequences as stunt coordinator Tom Struthers worked on the first season before recently moving on to Season 3 of Jack Ryan at Amazon. Struthers’ impressive feature film credits include Dunkirk, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, X-Men: First Class, Terminator Salvation, John Carter, and Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming Dune remake.

Halo’s cast consists of Bookem Woodbine, Charlie Murphy, Olive Gray, Kate Kennedy, Yerin Ha, Jen Taylor, Shabana Azmi, Bentley Kalu, Natasha Culzac, and Danny Spani.

Otto Bathurst, Joanthan Liebesman, Roel Reine, and Jessica Lowery are directing various episodes.

At one time, director Neill Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson were developing Halo as a feature film for 20th Century Fox before the project was killed as Blomkamp and Jackson pivoting to make District 9 instead.

Halo will officially debut on Paramount+ in 2022.

SOURCE: PABLO SCHREIBER

Posted on in Television News

‘Jack Ryan’ Season 3 Adds ‘Dunkirk & ‘The Dark Knight’ Stunt Coordinator Tom Struthers

John Krasinski is having a pretty good week as his second feature film as a director made a mint at the domestic box office this past Memorial Day long weekend, with A Quiet Place Part II taking in around $57 million surpassing both the original film and Godzilla Vs. Kong’s pandemic record breaking domestic opening. Krasinski is also the main lead of the Amazon spy series Jack Ryan, of course, based on the Tom Clancy series of novels that spawned five studio movies previously led by actors such as Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, and Chris Pine.

The Ronin can confirm that veteran stunt coordinator Tom Struthers has joined the production team of the Amazon Prime Video series. Something that should get action fans like myself hyped about the third season taking steps to elevate the show’s action sequences.

The stunt coordinator isn’t a stranger to the Jack Ryan franchise as he worked on Chris Pine’s Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Struthers’ other credits include The Dark Knight, Dunkirk, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, John Carter, Terminator Salvation, and X-Men: First Class. He most recently worked on Denis Villeneuve’s first Dune installment and the Paramount+ streaming series Halo starring Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief, both sci-fi projects had been primarily shot in Budapest, Hungary.

Filming is reportedly still underway as Deadline says they added Betty Gabriel (Get Out) to the cast last month and mentioned the plot synopsis of the next season. She joins Krasinski alongside others such as Wendell Pierce, Mark Kelly, James Cosmo, Peter Guinness, Nina Hoss, and Alexej Manvelov.

Season 3 of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan finds Jack Ryan (Krasinski) on the run and in a race against time. Jack is wrongly implicated in a larger conspiracy and suddenly finds himself a fugitive out in the cold. Now, wanted by both the CIA and an international rogue faction that he has uncovered, Jack is forced underground, crisscrossing Europe, trying to stay alive and prevent a massive global conflict.

Season 3 is said to debut sometime this year.

Posted on in Film News

Neill Blomkamp Teases Interest In Making A ‘Starship Troopers’ Movie

Today, we learned that District 9 director Neill Blomkamp is working on a script for a sequel to his debut sci-fi action film, titled District 10. That’s not the only thing he teased on Twitter. A fan asked him if he’d make a Starship Troopers film and candidly seemed to agree with him with “I’ll do it”, while dismissing someone else’s call to do something in the Star Wars universe.

https://twitter.com/NeillBlomkamp/status/1365163570472701952
https://twitter.com/NeillBlomkamp/status/1365164612472070147

Interestingly, a Starship Troopers reboot was announced back in 2016 at Sony Pictures as first revealed by The Hollywood Reporter. The bad news was that producer Neal H. Moritz is attached, who was behind the horribly generic PG-13 remakes of RoboCop and Total Recall. Along with the screenwriters behind the long forgotten Baywatch movie.

Five years later and there really hasn’t been a concrete update on the project.

Starship Troopers was based on the novel by Robert A. Heinlein, the book helped inspire James Cameron’s Colonial Marines in Aliens and Microsoft’s Halo franchise. It landed a Japanese anime, feature film from director Paul Verhoeven released in 1997, a kids CGI animated series, multiple low-budget film sequels, and animated projects.

It’s worth mentioning the Blomkamp hasn’t had the best luck when trying to turn existing IP into feature films as he was originally set to make his film debut with 20th Century Fox’s Halo film before pivoting to District 9. More recently he exited 20th Century Fox’s Alien 5 (a direct sequel to James Cameron’s Aliens) and MGM Studios’ RoboCop Returns (a direct sequel to Paul Verhoeven’s original) before moving on to his own stuff.

Neill would certainly be a strong pick for a new Starship Troopers film and given the lack of status updates from Sony it doesn’t sound like they’re about get that earlier reboot incarnation into production anytime soon. Then again, tweeting interest doesn’t mean it will come together but teasing stuff on social media is how Blomkamp eventually got a development deal for Alien 5 at Fox.

STARSHIP TROOPERS – In the distant future, the Earth is at war with a race of giant alien insects. Little is known about the Bugs except that they are intent on the eradication of all human life. But there was a time before the war… A Mobile Infantry travels to distant alien planets to take the war to the Bugs. They are a ruthless enemy with only one mission: Survival of their species no matter what the cost…

SOURCE: NEILL BLOMKAMP

Posted on in Television News

The Live-Action ‘Halo’ Series Moves From Showtime To Paramount+

Deadline has revealed that the Halo series has been moved from Showtime to streaming service Paramount+. The upcoming series is, of course, based on the beloved sci-fi shooter from Xbox and will be produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television.

Halo‘s long road to the small screen has taken one final turn. Showtime’s anticipated series based on the hugely popular Xbox video game franchise will migrate to Paramount+ and be available exclusively on ViacomCBS’ streamer. The announcement will be made during the ViacomCBS Streaming Event this afternoon.

We should get more information on the show’s move to Paramount+ later today.

UPDATE: The Halo series is officially debuting sometime in 2022 as revealed by Paramount+ yesterday.

An epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant. Halo will weave deeply drawn personal stories with action, adventure and a richly imagined vision of the future.

The series will include the iconic video game character Master Chief played by Pablo Schreiber. Filming had been taking place in Budapest, Hungry and Pablo has suggested on Instagram that they’re still making the show.

This isn’t a shocking development as we saw something similar happen when WarnerMedia moved Ridley Scott’s sci-fi series Raised By Wolves from TNT to HBO Max, that worked out well for Max as the company revealed Wolves became their most popular original content last year.

At one time, director Neill Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson were developing Halo as a feature film for 20th Century Fox before the project was killed as Blomkamp and Jackson pivoting to make District 9 instead.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Television News

Showtime’s ‘Halo’ Series Recasts Cortana Role With Franchise Voice Actress Jen Taylor

As Showtime’s Halo series has officially resumed filming in Budapest there has been a bit of a casting shakeup concerning the role of artificial intelligence character Cortana that assists Master Chief.

IGN is reporting that Halo video game franchise actress Jen Taylor is set to replace Natascha McElhone (Ronin) as Cortana in the series due to a scheduling conflict but will keep playing Dr. Catherine Halsey, the creator of Cortana.

IGN can exclusively reveal that Showtime’s Halo TV series has recast its Cortana actress, bringing in Jen Taylor for the role. You’ll know Taylor from her role as Cortana in all the mainline Halo games. It’s not yet clear if Taylor will play the role in-person, or lend her performance to a full CGI character.

Due to scheduling difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, McElhone can no longer complete her work as Cortana – but will continue in the role of Halsey.

Despite the delays it’s looking like they’ll be able to begin airing the 10-episodes of Halo sometime in 2021 on Showtime. They’ve already started the post-production process on the series.

SOURCE IGN

Posted on in Television News

Showtime and Pablo Schreiber Confirm Production Has Resumed In Budapest On Their Live-Action ‘Halo’ Series

After some recent hints from Halo lead actor Pablo Schreiber that filming was about to resume on the sci-fi series, Showtime and Pablo have confirmed this on Twitter/Instagram that production has started back up in Budapest, Hungary.

Pablo plays John 117 aka Master Chief in the sci-fi action military series based on the beloved Microsoft/Xbox video game franchise which will have 10-episodes on Showtime. Filming originally started in Budapest last November before COVID-19 restrictions became a hiccup in 2020 across the globe concerning the halt of film and television productions.

It was revealed by Rogue director M.J. Bassett, that he will not be returning to the series due to a scheduling conflict with his next film.

I’ve recently learned that Showtime has already started the lengthy post-production process on the series which is a good sign that they’ll be able to cross the finish line in the not too distant future.

SOURCE: SHOWTIME & PABLO SCHREIBER

Posted on in Television News

‘Halo’ Series Expected To Resume Filming Soon But Loses Director M.J. Bassett Due To Scheduling Issues

While promoting his upcoming action film Rogue, director M.J. Bassett was asked by The Hollywood Reporter about finishing up his work on Showtime’s Halo series. Bassett revealing that a commitment to another movie has become a conflict with a return to the show as filming will be resuming soon.

BASSETT: “I got wrapped about a few days before I was due to start shooting, and I can’t go back to it because I have another project I was penciled in for. It’s my next movie, in fact. I managed to keep the date for the movie, but Halo is also going to get up and running on that date. So I had a conflict and had to step away, which is a terrible shame because Halo is going to be a really fun show. I was really looking forward to it. We built the sets, planned everything and had scripts that were working. It’s going to be an enormous, enormous show. Pablo Schreiber is going to be a great Master Chief. The whole cast was good, but unfortunately, I can’t go back to it.”

A new Instagram post today from Master Chief actor Pablo Schreiber would suggest that they’re still shooting as production was taking place in Budapest. I recently got intel that Showtime has already started the lengthy post-production process on the sci-fi project.

An air date for Halo has yet to be announced by Showtime.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER