I dont believe you until i see it. cause last time i heard about a movie, it never happened.
Well this is Spielberg's second crack at the Halo franchise, actually. A while back, after Peter Jackson and Columbia Pictures couldn't come to terms on the money to make a proper Halo movie, Spielberg's Dreamworks was heavily rumored to buy the script and head it up themselves. So this doesn't exactly come as a surprise.
As for Spielberg himself...well, he's been pretty hit or miss when it comes to Sci-Fi television.
Terra Nova, which he Executive Produced (which is what he's doing here with
World of Halo), was just awful, and got canned after it's first season. The writing was terribly predictable, the actors incompetent, and the dialogue was poor. But the world itself that the show created wasn't bad at all. In fact, it had a lot of potential. World-building is EP territory. It's important to distinguish that Spielberg did not write for
Terra Nova.
Then there's the other side of the spectrum in
Falling Skies. It stumbled a bit during the early parts of its freshman season, but has since really come into it's own. I won't call it great, by any means, but the acting is more than passable, the world-building is great, and the storylines, while they are typical Spielberg family-driven (most of the time), are still enjoyable. It's a success.
His other successful Sci-Fi endeavors on the big screen include the
Back to the Future series as well as
E.T.
But then, Halo's not only about Sci-Fi... there's war, too. And Spielberg has hit HOMERUNS with war-related television/film. See:
Saving private Ryan, Band of Brothers, and
The Pacific. Which are ALL fantastic. AND on another hand, he also gave us timeless classics like
Animaniacs and
Pinky & the Brain.
Add all that to this quote-
After learning of the creative minds behind Microsoft's Halo series, we're now getting a better sense of how much of an investment the company is making in this project and future original programming. In
an interview with Variety, Nancy Tellem (Microsoft's president of entertainment and digital media) reveals that the operating budget will resemble that of HBO's Game of Thrones and other ambitious, high-caliber shows.
And I'd say it's MORE than alright to be hopeful and excited.