Pablo Schreiber (Orange Is The New Black) has been cast as Master Chief in Showtime’s Halo TV series, according to Variety. Master Chief, Earth’s last hope in a bloody war across space, quickly became a video game icon in the early 2000s as he took the fight to the evil Covenant, an alien empire determined to destroy humanity.
Newcomer Yerin Ha has also been cast as a character named Quan Ah, “a shrewd, audacious 16-year-old from the Outer Colonies who meets Master Chief at a fateful time for them both.”
The 10-episode series, which will begin filming in Budapest in the autumn, takes place during “an epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant,” weaving “deeply drawn personal stories with action, adventure and a richly imagined vision of the future,” according to a statement by the network.
Awake creator Kyle Killen will act as showrunner, along with Steven Kane (The Last Ship), who will oversee production in Budapest while Killen manages writing and producing the show stateside, according to THR.
Otto Bathurst (Black Mirror) will direct the pilot and several other episodes. Showtime is making the series in collaboration with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment.
This isn’t the first time Halo has been up for the live-action treatment, either. You may also recall that Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp also tried to get a Halo movie off the ground, but a creative war between several studios ended the project before it could truly begin. Elements of Blomkamp’s Halo project can be seen in several of his movies, such as the African setting in District 9 and the ring-shaped space station in Elysium.
Ridley Scott produced a poorly received web series called Halo: Nightfall starring Luke Cage‘s Mike Colter back in 2014. Hopefully, Showtime’s series fares much better.
We’ll keep you updated as we learn more!
