4) Halo
What is it?
2004 – that’s the year a Halo movie was first announced. Based on the popular video game, about a super soldier stranded on an alien world and doing battle with extraterrestrials, Halo originally had Peter Jackson on board as executive producer and District 9‘s Neill Blomkamp as director. When financing fell through, Blomkamp declared the movie “dead.”
Why it could escape development hell:
No matter what, people have kept on trying to make the Halo movie, and it doesn’t seem like they’re going to stop trying. It also looks like they’re getting closer all the time.
The cinematic Halo game trailers Blomkamp made several years back proved the Halo universe could be realised in live-action, while only recently the makers behind the games have branched out into live-action web and TV series.
2012’s Forward Unto Dawn was made as an apparent “stepping stone” to a feature, while only a couple of years back Blomkamp revealed he was still interested in making the movie. Ridley Scott was even involved with TV show Halo: Nightfall, which bodes well for the property’s potential cinematic future.