Over the weekend, Production Weekly reported that a new 'Halo' film was in the works with Ridley Scott producing. Everyone got excited because, yay, 'Halo' movie. Unfortunately, it's not true.

Microsoft tried once (and failed quite spectacularly) to make a 'Halo' movie and now the company says that ship has sailed. In a statement to EuroGamer, Microsoft said:

We plan to continue telling the Halo story through innovative channels, but there are no plans for a Halo motion picture.

The "innovative channel" Microsoft is referring to is the forthcoming Steven Spielberg-produced 'Halo' series that will be Xbox Live's first original series. That project was announced in March of last year and though precious little movement has been made on development, it seems Microsoft still plans on pushing this forward.

Back in 2005, Microsoft tried their hand at a 'Halo' movie, hiring Alex Garland to write the script and then sending guys in Master Chief costumes around to Hollywood studios to deliver the pages. Fox and Universal teamed up to work on the film and Peter Jackson was brought on to produce, with Neill Blomkamp attached to direct. It's an experience Blomkamp (who would take some of his 'Halo' development work and use it to create 'District 9') called a "clusterf--- from Day One" and would later say, "I’ll never ever work with Fox ever again because of what happened to 'Halo.'"

After a bitter fight between Microsoft and Fox/Universal over money and creative control, the rights eventually returned to Microsoft in 2009 and it looks like they have no intention of trying to do that again. And we can't blame them.

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