Jimmy Jangles vists the Weta Cave
The Weta Cave is the ‘store front’ if you will of Weta Workshop. Weta Workshop is a “multi-award winning conceptual design and physical manufacturing facility servicing the world’s entertainment and creative industries.”
Keen Halo fans might know it as the place where the props and production was happening for the as yet unmade Halo Movie. They are more well known for making a series of movies some people call Lord of the Rings
. In Wellington, we just call them ‘that film Peter made’ a while back….
Weta Cave is a shop for people to go and buy trinkets and sculptures and books on the various movies that Weta Work shop has contributed to – and they have some Halo product for sale.
Visitors to the Cave get to see a 20 minute short of the goings on at Weta Workshop – there’s heaps of Halo stuff in there as they did a lot of preproduction work for the canned movie. Still, there’s some hope a Halo film will get made…
Here’s some poor quality iphone pictures of what’s on offer that I took during my visit this afternoon.
|
|
| Arby and the Chief |
|
|
| Various Spartan Helemets |
|
|
| Chief v. Flood |
|
|
| Brute Spiker from the Halo film production |
|
|
| Prop from the Blomkamp Shorts |
|
|
| Jimmy Jangles and new friend Lurtz |
Why Andrew Nicol should direct the Halo Movie
Why Andrew Nicol should direct the Halo Movie (if it ever gets green lit again!)
First up. Who is Andew Nicol you might ask? He’s a Hollywood film director that KNOWS his SCI FI. He’s notabably notable for writing and directing GATTACCA and writing and producing The Truman Show (and was Oscar nominated) but he also wrote S1MONE which starred Al Pacino and wrote the The Terminal for Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. He also knows about guns, lots of guns as he wrote and directed the Nic Cage vehicle, Lord of War. Don’t get shot with your own gun eh?
Nicol knows the Hollywood system inside and out having been a player for many years. He’s friends with the Biggest Player of them All, Mr Speilberg. He will be able to manage the crap and provide a platform which Frank, 343 Industries and Bill Gates are happy with.
Combine his love of sci fi, ability to write oscar nominated scripts, and his clear, determined approach to no nonsense movie making and you have a guy that can sheppard in a Halo movie with the love and care that expected from the built in fan base.
Actually, it’s not that Andrew Nicol should direct the Halo movie, its Andrew Nichol deserves the Halo movie.
Plus he’s a New Zealander! We Kiwis are fucking great at making movies (and Halo Games – see Chris Butcher). We have Peter Jackson and Sam Neil. He kicked Juarassic Park’s Prehistoric Ass back to beyond the Stone Age. Hell, Sam Neil would make a great Captain of the Pillar of Autumn eh?
What ever you do Andrew, DO NOT CAST DENZEL WASHINGTON as Sarge Johnson. Washington’s smugness ruins just about every movie he’s been in. Except Training Day when his smug character needed his smug attitude….
Oh crickey, I just remembered about James Cameron. Ignore the above!
Why the Halo movie failed by Jamie Russel
Here’s a pretty succinct article by Jamie Russel on why the Halo movie fell over. It’s acutally from his book: How video games invaded Hollywood
The short answer is money but it’s a good read. Here’s a snippet from the article:
What was apparent during the Halo deal-making was that Microsoft was far from home, perhaps even surrounded in enemy territory. In the middle of the Halo negotiations, as all parties sat around the table, Shapiro recalls the discussion between Microsoft’s Hollywood liaison Peter Schlessel and Jimmy Horowitz, Universal’s co-president of production, taking an aggressive turn. “Schlessel was getting really tough on some of the terms with Horowitz: ‘Come on, don’t be a jerk, blah, blah, blah…’. It was getting really heated. The guy from Microsoft [Steve Schrek] was like, ‘Wow, this is really good.’ Then we took a break and Schlessel goes to Horowitz, ‘Are you coming over for Passover?’ Because they know each other. You don’t have those kinds of relationships in videogames. In Hollywood you can be getting at each other but then you’re playing golf together the next day.”
Even after the deal was struck, the misunderstanding over how the movie business operated continued to be a problem. Microsoft wanted a big-name director, but Peter Jackson, helmer on The Lord of the Rings trilogy, decided to sign on as a co-producer alongside Peter Schlessel, Mary Parent and Scott Stuber.
Jackson wanted his new prot g , an up-and-coming commercials whiz kid called Neill Blomkamp, to direct. With Jackson’s fee running to several million dollars the studios knew there was an advantage in hiring a cheaper, less well-known talent to sit in the director’s chair. Microsoft was reputedly not happy with the decision.
iCosplay Blog 