Is all this talk about a Halo film still going on? Apparently so, as the rumour mill now says that the one and only Steven Spielberg – taking over from Peter Jackson - has got himself involved. If true we could be seeing Master Chief shooting Covenant troops on the big screen after all.

IESB, a film news site, has a source that says Spielberg is currently in active negotiations to oversee the production of a Halo film. Spielberg is apparently “blown away” by a screenplay written by Stuart Beattie, which is largely based on the novel Halo: The Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund. The novel is Master Chief’s origin story, and if a film were to be based off it then it would most likely do a Judge Dredd and have Master Chief take off his helmet.

If the rumours are true then Spielberg is only in talks to produce the film and not direct it, so that obviously leaves the way open for your director predictions. Whoever that may be you have to bet that with Spielberg on the team the film should turn out at least moderately good. Spielberg is also a video games fan, having helped develop the Boom Blox games, so hopefully you’d have to hope that he would do the Halo franchise justice and not have it turn out to be another horrible film based on a video game.

Microsoft was quick to respond to the rumours, releasing the following statement to Kotaku;

“We’re glad there’s still a lot of enthusiasm in the entertainment industry surrounding the idea of a Halo movie. That said, the Halo feature film remains on hold as we focus on projects like Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach.” - Kotaku

At least they’re not saying the film is cancelled outright, which leaves some hope for Halo fans expecting to see a film within the next two years or so.

While you may not be getting any Halo film love anytime soon maybe you can at least be somewhat happy that a Dead Space film is in the works. Of course, there’s always the future World of Warcraft film – directed by the Spider-Man films Sam Raimi – to look forward to.

IESB Exclusive: Master Chief and HALO May Be Coming to the Big Screen Sooner than Expected with a New Big Name Producer - IESB

A few days ago I saw a trailer for an upcoming movie called “Pandorum“. It’s one of those “scares-on-a-spaceship” films that have been knocking around in the film industry for a long while (spawning both b-movies such as It! The Terror from Beyond Space and, of course, big budget classics such as Alien). However, after I had viewed the trailer I wasn’t really thinking about films and, instead, felt like it shared a lot of similarities with Dead Space. We won’t be sure what the monsters actually are until we see the movie, but I’m willing to bet that the monsters are actually the crew just like in Dead Space.

Anyway, my point is that I was thinking that Dead Space might actually make at least an average guilty pleasure flick (I know there was a short animated film, but I’m talking live action here). Maybe “Event Horizon” with lashings of gore and an absence of Sam Neil tearing his own eyes out. A day later Variety had to go and make me think I’m psychic by revealing that EA are currently about to try and sell the idea of a Dead Space film to various studios.

Variety says that EA will produce the film with Temple Hill partners Marty Bowen (”Twilight“) and Wyck Godfrey (”Alien vs. Predator“, “I, Robot“). D.J. Caruso (”Eagle Eye“) is also set to direct the film, which EA are set to auction off to studios after they secure a writer. Apparently this could be as early as September, but that doesn’t mean we’ll be seeing the film at our local cinema anytime soon.

EA have recently secured a deal for a film version of their upcoming game Dante’s Inferno, and since that game doesn’t have the sales to go with the name yet the likelihood that Dead Space may get its own film has slightly increased. Couple this with the news that Dead Space may be getting two sequels (along with the already announced Wii game Dead Space: Extraction) and EA has a budding franchise to exploit.

At least we know that the guys who worked on the Resident Evil films have their hands full with “Pandorum” (because, let’s face it, we don’t really want yet another game franchise to be butchered when it makes the jump to the silver screen), but then again “Eagle Eye” wasn’t exactly great so I’m not holding my breath for a decent video game flick just yet.

D.J. Caruso to direct ‘Dead Space’ - Variety

(Image source: IGN)

If there’s one big pointer that a film may turn out to be utter trash it’s when the studio releasing it decides not to hold early screenings for film critics. This is what has happened with Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, which means that critics will have to go to the cinema with the rest of us Average Joes on its 27th February release date.

It also means that those of us sceptical about the films quality (which is probably most of us) will have to go to the cinema blind as there will be no reviews available for us to read beforehand. Of course, most of us probably don’t read reviews either but Fox can rake in a bit more cash from those who would usually read the review first, but seeing there are none would buy a ticket to see it anyway.

What would I do? Well, if Fox doesn’t have enough faith in the film to screen it to critics beforehand then why should we have any faith to put down our hard earned cash when we might be going to see an incredibly bad film?

Whatever the case let’s just hope that it turns out to be a better film than the incredibly awful first Street Fighter film. I have to link that to show you how cheap you can buy it for, but trust me on this - even if it was free it’s totally not worth wasting your time watching it. Even the presence of a young Kylie Minogue can save that film, and the Devil himself counts it as one of the worst tortures he can give. It’s THAT bad!

Oh well, at least we have Street Fighter IV which, coincidently, was released today.

Street Fighter movie not being screened for critics - The Cut Scene (Variety)