The Halo TV series, which has been in the works for years now, may take even longer to finally get going. It was announced today that director Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) has left the project due to a change in the production schedule.
“It’s with great disappointment that changes to the production schedule of Halo prevent me from continuing in my role as a director on the series,” Wyatt said in a statement (via THR). “My time on Halo has been a creatively rich and rewarding experience with a phenomenal team of people. I now join the legion of fans out there, excited to see the finished series and wishing everyone involved the very best.”
The Halo TV show will air on Showtime, whose parent company, CBS, also owns GameSpot. Network president of programming Gary Levine said in his own statement that the Halo show is “evolving beautifully with rich characters, compelling stories, and powerful scripts.”
The production demands for the Halo TV show are “enormous,” Levine said. As such, Showtime needed to add more time to the production schedule, and this meant that Wyatt had to drop out. Showtime said previously that Halo is the network’s “most ambitious series ever,” and that’s notable given Showtime is behind some massive productions such as Homeland, Shameless, Billions, and more recently the Jim Carrey show Kidding.
The Halo TV show will feature Master Chief in some capacity, but it remains to be seen if he is the lead, or what other characters might join him. Kyle Killen (Awake) will serve as writer, showrunner, and executive producer.
Showtime has ordered 10 hour-long episodes of Halo for its first season. The Halo show was originally announced back in 2013 with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television set to produce, which it still is.
The new Halo TV show, which doesn’t have a name yet, follows 2012’s series Halo: Forward Unto Dawn that starred Chronicles of Narnia actress Anna Popplewell.
A Halo movie was at one point in the works with Neil Blomkamp set to direct and Peter Jackson producing, but it never happened. It wasn’t a totally sad story, however, as Blomkamp and Jackson created the acclaimed sci-fi film District 9 out of Halo’s ashes.
As for the Halo video game franchise, the next instalment is Halo Infinite for Xbox One and PC. There is no word on when the game is coming out, and all we’ve seen so far is a trailer for the game’s engine, not the game itself.
