Wait What?! Halo TV Series?!

I found out this morning that I was born under a rock. Mostly because I never knew a Halo TV series was coming, or I might have forgotten all about it.

Yes, yes…terrible GIF, I know.

The series evidently stars Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, the “Spartan” super soldier most Xbox players have been loving long time. I played a bit the earlier games, and wasn’t really taken with them. Don’t ask me why.

Evidently the show went through development hell and has had three producers. With Steven Spielberg at the helm the show was set to release back in 2015, which changed to 2019 with Rupert Wyatt as producer, then a 2020 release and now the show is set for an early 2022 release with Otto Bathurst as producer on Paramount+. Filming began in October 2019 and spent $40 million on production costs, with the first five episodes being re-edited under the Covid-19 shutdown and the sixth episode production and reshoots being planned in Ontario, Canada.

Head of Halo Transmedia and Entertainment, Kiki Wolfkill (LOL, what a cool name) has spoken about the challenges of adapting the TV series and how it might differ from the pew pew of the game series.

For Wolfkill, one of the major challenges was the transition between seeing the world through the Master Chief’s eyes and seeing his story unfold on screen. Which will no doubt mean a slightly different take on the man inside the legendary Spartan armour. In Wolfkill’s own words:

“The biggest challenge with adapting the game is, the game is designed to put you into [Master] Chief’s armor. What we’re asking people to do with the show is to sit back and say we’re going to present a side of Chief that you just don’t get to play in the game.”

For people that have read the Halo novels this must be music to their ears, and also hints that the series will dive deeper into the characters than the games ever did.

A tiny revelation of the iconic Master Chief helmet was shown off by Pablo Schreiber on Instagram, and shows the excitement of the actor for the series:

Here are some behind the scenes teaser photos to get fans excited as well:

The series cast are as follows:

• Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, a towering supersoldier known as a “Spartan”
• Natascha McElhone as Dr. Catherine Halsey, a scientist for the UNSC and creator of the Spartan-II Project.
• Yerin Ha as Kwan Ha
• Charlie Murphy as Makee
• Shabana Azmi as Admiral Margaret Parangosky, Director of ONI.
• Bokeem Woodbine as Soren-066
• Olive Gray as Miranda Keyes
• Kate Kennedy as Kai-125
• Natasha Culzac as Riz-028
• Bentley Kalu as Vannak-134
• Danny Sapani as TBA
• Voice cast
• Jen Taylor as Cortana, an artificial intelligence (AI) construct[4][5]

Are you excited about this series? I must say, I am. I’m always looking for something cool to watch, and not really knowing all the lore, I will be checking this out with fresh peepers.

Last Updated: August 19, 2021