Ok kiddos, the much anticipated HALO movie may be coming to the big screen much sooner than we expected. The wildly popular video games follow Master Chief, a cybernetically-enhanced human super-soldier, and his artificial intelligence (AI) companion, Cortana as they aide future humanity in battling the Covenant. So we are thinking action, aliens and atleast one hot chick.

Movie news site IESB has learned exclusively that one of the biggest producers in Hollywood history is currently in active negotiations to develop the feature film adaptation and no it’s not Jerry Bruckheimer or Peter Jackson. It’s the man behind Jaws, E.T., Indiana Jones and Transformers, Mr. Steven Spielberg.

Spielberg is blown away by writer Stuart Beattie’s take on the game in his script entitled HALO THE FALL OF REACH. This coupled with the fact that his Dreamworks umbrella is looking for a big tent pole to help launch their newly independant studio with distribution over at Walt Disney Pictures after losing Transformers to Paramount in the separation, it’s the perfect combination.

With Spielberg tipping this scales for this take on a video game movie, we can only hope he does it justice. We all know what happened to the Street Fighter series…ugh. /fail

[Source]

EA's BOOM BLOX

(EuroGamer) – Film director Steven Spielberg has said that traditional gaming platforms will cease to exist and that 3D gaming and virtual reality will be the “new platform for our gaming future”.

Speaking to The Guardian, Spielberg said that, just like the old “videogame parlours”, consoles and other gaming equipment will go “the way of the Dodo bird”.

“Now we’re all playing at home and someday we’ll be playing directly on our TV sets, bypassing all of the platforms,” he said.

The veteran director, who just finished work on his second Boom Blox game with EA, also talked about his expectations about the future.

“In the short term I would love to start seeing 3D games developed where with a good pair of glasses we get a real three-dimensional experience in front of an appropriate monitor that is designed just for 3D,” he said.

“And after that, will certainly be virtual reality, which just like 3D came and went in the 1950s, and now it’s here to stay in movies.

“I really think virtual reality, which experimentally came and went in the eighties, is going to be redeveloped, just like 3D is being redeveloped today, and that’s going to be the new platform for our gaming future.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Spielberg said he was “a PC game player more than anything else”, but said he also played on PS3 and Xbox 360.

“I get more into the microphysics of gaming, especially on the PC. I’m closer to the screen, I look for detail, I notice things more easily. The Wii platform which I adore is more of a macro experience, you know.”