Showtime Orders Halo Adaptation

Showtime has given a green light to a live-action adaptation of the hit video game Halo, with Kyle Killen serving as executive producer, writer and showrunner.

The network has ordered a ten-episode season, which is being produced by Showtime in association with Microsoft/343 Industries and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television. Production begins early next year. Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) will direct multiple episodes and also executive produce. The series will dramatize the epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant. It will be distributed globally by CBS Studios International.

Halo the video game sold more than 77 million copies worldwide, grossing more than $5 billion in sales.

“Halo is our most ambitious series ever, and we expect audiences who have been anticipating it for years to be thoroughly rewarded,” said David Nevins, the president and CEO of Showtime Networks. “In the history of television, there simply has never been enough great science fiction. Kyle Killen’s scripts are thrilling, expansive and provocative, Rupert Wyatt is a wonderful, world-building director, and their vision of Halo will enthrall fans of the game while also drawing the uninitiated into a world of complex characters that populate this unique universe.”