To briefly recap on the story so far as we know it: Neil Blomkamp — director of the upcoming District 9 — was the first to attempt bringing Halo to the big screen. He even went so far as filming a live-action short video for Halo 3 promotion, and to show what the popular video game world could look like in live-action without any budget at all. The videos were great and the project was eventually put in motion with Peter Jackson acting as producer, but sadly, it became apparent that the budget would be way too large, and the Halo movie was put down Old Yeller style.

It really didn’t look like this movie was ever going to get made, but we all may have assumed a bit too soon. IESB is reporting that Steven Spielberg himself may be the man to pull this project from the cold grasp of cinematic death and breathe that sweet, sweet life back into it. The news was confirmed multiple times that Spielberg is currently in “active negotiations” to develop the Halo movie himself.

Click on over to see the live-action videos that were made to initially pitch the idea for a movie.

The script for the movie was written by Stuart Beattie, and based on the novel Halo: The Fall of Reach, rather than the actual games. Apparently Spielberg was so impressed with this script that he’s jumping at the opportunity to grab it and make it happen. If this actually ends up playing out, it could be a really perfect match made in heaven. Spielberg was just at the E3 convention for the Microsoft presentation (Who owns Halo? Hmm), and happens to be a huge game fan — not to mention the fact that DreamWorks could use a massive franchise right about now. And if done properly, Halo could certainly be a real juggernaut.

Recently, Blomkamp stated that if the Halo project came back around, he didn’t think he would take it. I have to wonder if this would still be the case if Steven Spielberg came knocking. Considering that the director pulled off the amazing-looking District 9 with only a $30 Million budget, he has to be the very first name on the list of possible directors they would want. If it were me, I think he absolutely has to be the man. It doesn’t matter what it takes; you watch this video again, and give him whatever it takes to get him to direct this movie. Not only will you get a great movie, but you probably find a way to cut the budget as well, which was the prime reason for the movie originally being shelved.

Because I enjoyed them so much, and because these almost make me NEED to know what they would look like if given a big budget, here is the live-action Halo video Blomkamp made. Watching them again, you can actually see a little District 9 in there.

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