Exclusive: DB Weiss Talks Halo Screenplay

Speaking as part of an interview on sister site GameSetWatch, Lucky Wander Boy novel author DB Weiss has confirmed that he's currently writing a screenplay for the Halo movie for producers Mary Parent, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, and commented briefly on the status of the project. Weiss indicated that he is "just starting in on an entirely new second draft" of his version of the screenplay, following an earlier draft by Alex Garland (The Beach) which led to the film's late 2005 signing of a joint deal between Universal Studios, 20th Century Fox, Microsoft, and Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh to make the film. Interestingly, both of the above writers have been previously featured in the UK Guardian's list of the top video game-related books of all time as authors who "make non-judgemental use of characters obsessed with videogames", showing the apparent wish of the producers to use particularly game-savvy writers in adapting material from Microsoft's blockbuster franchise. Commenting on the chance to create a screenplay for Halo, Weiss noted, when asked if he was attracted to the title when he played it as a gamer: "Yeah, I’m pretty excited about it. And I did always think there was a lot more to the Halo universe than most games -- I remember switching to “Easy” mode on the first game, so I could plow through it more quickly and find out what happened next." Elsewhere in the interview, when asked whether he was concerned about criticism from the long-time fans of any of his movie adaptations, Weiss commented: "There will be the 5% on the fringe of any hardcore fanbase that get angry about any change you make to the source material. The truth is that novels, games, comics, and what-have-you are not usually ready to be slapped up on screen as-is." In fact, Weiss suggests of this particular issue: "If you did do a 100% faithful version, 999 times out of 1000 it would be a mess, and even the 5%-ers would recognise as much." As for the Halo movie itself, no further information is currently available on either a shooting or release date for the much-anticipated film. However, producer Peter Jackson commented in February of the entire game-based film genre: "It'll be very interesting when a filmmaker creates a video game-based film experience that goes beyond what people thought it could be", showing the filmmakers' dedication to getting things right when it comes to Halo.