X05: Peter Jackson To Executive Produce Halo Movie

At X05 in Amsterdam today, Peter Moore, corporate vice president of Worldwide Marketing and Publishing for Xbox at Microsoft, has revealed that triple Academy Award winners Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh will serve as the executive producers of Halo, the upcoming feature film based on Microsoft's phenomenally popular video game. According to Microsoft, this unique alliance between Universal Studios, 20th Century Fox, Microsoft, and Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh promises a step forward in motion picture production. The company commented in an official press release: "Halo will benefit from the experience and resources of the film studios, from Microsoft's groundbreaking vision and from Jackson's and Walsh's creative sensibilities and expertise in both traditional filmmaking and the world of emerging digital technologies." Earlier in this year a publicity stunt had copies of Alex Garland's script for the film, which had been specially commissioned by Microsoft before being pitched, being delivered to movie studios by couriers dressed in full Master Chief armor. This was shortly followed by the news that Fox and Universal had closed a deal to make a movie based on Bungie/Microsoft's FPS. According to a Variety article released at the time, the studios will pay the tech giant $5 million against 10% of the gross, and the movie is scheduled to open later in 2007, with no director attached, and Microsoft-commissioned Halo movie scribe Alex Garland signed to do a rewrite. Though Jackson is not directing the movie, having him onboard as an executive producer is a significant coup for Microsoft.