Popular video game Halo is getting the TV series treatment thanks to Paramount Plus and the streamer has dropped a teaser trailer to show us what we’re in for.
The live-action show, which is expected to debut sometime in 2022, stars Pablo Schreiber as the iconic Master Chief from the long-running and much loved Xbox video game series. The character is a super-soldier created as part of the Spartan–II program.
The Truman Show‘s Natascha McElhone also stars in Halo, as Dr Catherine Halsey, the creator of the Spartan soldiers. Jen Taylor will reprise her role from the games as Cortana, the most advanced AI in human history.
Rounding out the cast are Bokeem Woodbine, Shabana Azmi, Bentley Kalu, Natasha Culzac, Kate Kennedy, Danny Sapani, Olive Gray, and Charlie Murphy.
The nine-episode TV series is said to follow an epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant, with Steven Spielberg serving as one of the executive producers. According to Rotten Tomatoes, Halo the TV show will attempt to “weave deeply drawn personal stories” with action and adventure set within that “richly imagined vision of the future.”
The fact that we finally have a teaser for the live-action series is definitely something to be celebrated, given how long it has taken to get here. Halo the TV show has been in the works for years and filming had finally gotten underway in late 2019 before the pandemic hit and the series, like so many others, was forced to shut down.
The live-action TV series is not the first time the hugely successful IP has been the jumping-off point for a film or television project.
Halo nearly became a feature film when, in 2005, 20th Century Fox and Universal picked up the project. Incredibly, Lord of the Rings helmer Peter Jackson was set to produce with both Guillermo del Toro just one of the A-list directors eager to take on the job. Unfortunately, negotiations between the studios, Jackson and one of the producers ultimately led to the project being shelved.
Since then, Microsoft themselves have produced two live-action web series which were later released as films: Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn and Halo: Nightfall.
Check out the teaser for Halo, coming to Paramount Plus in 2022, below.
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