Steven Spielberg’s Halo TV Series Starts Filming This Fall

The live-action Halo TV series is finally going to start filming later this year. Microsoft initially attempted to develop a Halo movie with several Hollywood studios in the mid-2000s, but that venture – which attracted top-tier talents such as Alex Garland, Neill Blomkamp, Peter Jackson, D.B. Weiss, and Guillermo del Toro – inevitably fell by the wayside reportedly because the film’s creative team refused to cut their first-dollar deals for the movie. Still, that didn’t mean Halo would never be adapted in live-action.


Aside from two web series (Nightfall and Forward Unto Dawn), the biggest and longest-awaited live-action Halo project has been Showtime’s TV series, which is being produced in partnership with Steven Spielberg under his banner, Amblin Entertainment. 343 Industries first announced the series way back in 2013, with initial plans to have it air on the premium network in 2015, to coincide with the release of Halo 5: Guardians. Unfortunately, Showtime missed that mark, and the show has been in stasis ever since, seemingly stuck in development hell for the past three years. It was recently confirmed that the Halo TV series is still in the works, and now it looks like it’s finally going to enter production.


According to Production Weekly, Spielberg and Showtime’s Halo TV series will start filming in fall 2018. It’s unclear when the show will finally air, but it’s conceivable that it may hit screens in either summer or fall 2019.


This news comes on the heels of Showtime’s CEO David Nevins confirming at the TCA 2018 presentations that the Halo TV series was very much in active development, with the network’s president of programming, Gary Levine, chiming in by saying that what they’re doing with Halo will not only satisfy fans of the video game franchise but also fans of their drama programs, such as Homeland.


Considering that Spielberg is only producing the TV series, he won’t have to devote too much time to getting the project off the ground, but it is something that he’s been trying to do for almost a decade. Spielberg originally attempted to get a Halo movie made in 2009/2010, but it didn’t work out. Eventually, the movie morphed into being a live-action TV series with Showtime. The question is, can Spielberg and Showtime do the source material justice?


Spielberg is obviously a well-regarded director and producer in the filmmaking industry, but the TV side of his production arm, Amblin Television, is hit or miss when it comes to sci-fi projects (see: Terra Nova, Falling Skies, and Minority Report). The last time Amblin worked with Showtime was on The Borgias, which was canceled after only three seasons. Hopefully, the live-action Halo TV series will be different and actually prove successful in the long-term, but we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.