Halo TV series jumps from Showtime to Paramount+

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

With Halo celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year, it's something of a surprise that the massively popular video-game franchise hasn't received a live-action feature-film or television adaptation, but that will all change with the upcoming TV series starring Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief. The Halo series was once destined for Showtime, but Deadline has now reported that it will be jumping ship to the Paramount+ streaming service.

The series will "weave deeply drawn personal stories with action, adventure and a richly imagined vision of the future" as it centers on a conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant. "It delivers the visceral excitement of playing the game, along with a much deeper emotional experience around the Spartans, human beings who got their humanity chemically and genetically altered," David Nevins, Chief Creative Officer, CBS & Chairman and CEO, Showtime Networks, said. "The story is about reclaiming what makes them human, and therefore it’s a very powerful story." Showtime will continue to produce Halo for Paramount+, but the jump to the streaming service has been in the works for some time as Nevins said that they "were on the hunt for signature shows beyond the Star Trek franchise on CBS All Access" and began to think that Halo would fit the bill once they started to see finished footage from the series.

Production on Halo got underway back in 2019, but was shut down last March by the COVID-19 pandemic after between 55%-60% of the first season had been film. In addition to Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief, Halo also stars Natasha McElhone as Dr. Halsey, "the brilliant, conflicted and inscrutable creator of the Spartan super soldiers" and Jen Taylor as Cortana, "the most advanced AI in human history, and potentiall the key to the survival of the human race." Bokeem Woodbine, Shabana Azmi, Natasha Culzac, Olive Gray, Yerin Ha, Bentley Kalu, Kate Kennedy, Charlie Murphy, and Danny Sapani are also slated to star in the series. Production has resumed in Budapest and Halo is now expected to premiere on Paramount+ early 2022.