According to Entertainment Weekly, Showtime has stepped into its Mark IV Mjolnir armor and ordered 10 episodes of a show based on that Halo games. Various attempts to turn Halo into a live-action feature film or a TV show have been made since the first game came out in 2001, but Showtime has actually hired a showrunner and a director, so it seems pretty serious about finally making this happen. The showrunner will be Kyle Killen, the creator NBC’s alternate reality police procedural Awake, and Rise Of The Planet Of The Ape’s Rupert Wyatt will direct “multiple episodes.”
As for what the show will be about, Showtime says it’s “an epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant,” which is a pretty straightforward setup for the plot of the games. We don’t know if Master Chief, the usual protagonist in the games, will be the main character, but he’d almost certainly have to be a character if Showtime wants to avoid a riot from Halo fans. Of course, at the risk of inciting a Halo riot anyway, Master Chief isn’t exactly charismatic or deep enough to be the lead in a TV show. A guy with a dozen lines across five video games is fine when you’re just shooting aliens, but a scripted drama series has to have, you know, talking and stuff.
In a statement, Showtime head David Nevins referred to the Halo project as their “most ambitious series ever,” adding that audiences who have been waiting to see a Halo adaptation like this will be “thoroughly rewarded.” All we know is that the most satisfying reward for all of this waiting would be for the show to completely ignore the Flood, which are still the worst enemies in any video game ever—even though they’re very important to the overall mythology and leaving them out would definitely wreck things.