Microsoft will be bringing Halo to the small screen…sort of.
It may have messed up the opportunity to turn Halo into a multi million-dollar theatrical movie success, but the highly successful Xbox shooter franchise will be getting transformed into a live-action masterpiece nevertheless.
Microsoft will be debuting a Web-based TV series in the hopes of achieving two goals – strike up as much publicity for Halo 4 as possible, and wrangle in new fans who haven’t necessarily played a Halo game yet.
The man at the helm of the Halo franchise, Frank O’Connor, was quoted as saying that the Web series will help “people to get on board this universe without feeling intimidated.”
Unlike the Halo movie, however, which would have been designed to have mass market appeal in its own right, this Web series is geared mainly to drum up business for the new game and will provide an extensive back story for Halo 4.
In Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, Master Chief will work with a cadet who is ends up becoming a leader on a UNSC spaceship. Each episode will be 15 minutes and new episodes will be added on a weekly basis.
The Halo franchise is one of Microsoft’s biggest cash cows. Since its initial launch in 2001, more than 40 million Halo games have been sold, generating more than $2 billion in sales. The failed attempt at a big screen adaptation was reported to be at its apex in 2005.
