Fans should rest easy as the new Halo television show on Showtime plans on putting Master Chief in the lead role and create a wholly unique story in the Halo universe.
During Showtime’s panel at the Television Critics Association summer press tour, Showtime’s President of Programming Gary Levine, and Showtime’s President and CEO David Nevins made it clear to the press that the hotly-anticipated adaptation will not disappoint.
Levine pointed out that the series is an “enormous undertaking” and that Showtime is aiming to air the series in 2020. The cable network also confirmed that the series will be set in multiple locations and on foreign planets. This means the network is likely to shoot on a studio backlot rather than shoot in foreign countries in the way that shows such as Game of Thrones do.
On the topic of Game of Thrones, Nevins confirms this isn’t an attempt at the network trying to replicate the success of the hugely popular HBO series.
“It is a very different genre, it’s futuristic, space-based science-fiction, it’s not fantasy,” Nevins pointed out. “It took us a long time to get the script but we felt like we had something that was really interesting and felt like it belonged on Showtime in terms of its character depth, and it’s gonna be a big show.”
Levine was then asked if the show would be telling its own original story to which Levine clarified, “It is a new story but we are being incredibly respectful of the canon and working with the Microsoft/343 people to be sure we don’t violate any of that.”
Kyle Killen (Awake) will write and serve as the series’ showrunner while Rise of the Planet of the Apes‘ director Rupert Wyatt will helm multiple episodes in the first season. The show is confirmed for at least ten episodes so far.
David Nevins also commented on their decision for the show’s writer saying:
“We made a conscious decision to hire a writer not known for sci-fi and not known for big battle movies, because that’s already baked into the Halo franchise and we will service that, but we also wanted to ensure that we were getting beneath the formidable armor of the Spartans and really getting inside the human drama so it felt like it belonged on Showtime,” Levine added. “As David said, our hopes and dreams are that it will have enormous appeal to Halo fans and will also appeal to Showtime drama fans.”
Finally, when asked about the difficulty in adapting a lead character whose face is never shown, Levine said that that aspect “is a key question and an important part of our series, is all I’ll say.”
The show has not yet started production but Nevins confirms they are currently in the process of reviewing scripts.