Over at Newsweek, N’Gai Croal (one of the best games journos going, and a guy that I’d love to see consistently writing for a more knowledgable base than Newsweek‘s) has an interview with Joseph Staten, Bungie’s writing director. The full interview is running in two parts (part one is here) but N’Gai today ran a snippet from the second installment that has to do with the stalled/stillborn Halo movie.
The crux of Staten’s discussion about the movie contains a detail that wasn’t super-secret, but will still get some conversation going. Specifically, he says "…over time I think everybody around the
table agreed that the Master Chief is best left as the most important
supporting cast member."
There’s a bit more, and it’s a good window into the film development process from a games perspective. I’m heartened to see that Bungie wasn’t bound and determined to shoehorn its game franchise into movie form like a round peg into a square hole. In fact, this is the only thing I’ve ever read that arouses even vague interest in a Halo movie. As a fairly outspoken non-fan of the series I’ve always thought it best belonged on Xbox Live, and this interview almost gave me hope…for something that may never well exist.