For a man who has only directed 3 films in the current decade, filmmaker Rupert Wyatt sure does have a lot of scheduling conflicts. Sadly, his latest conflict seems to have made him unable to direct the upcoming Showtime adaptation of the popular Xbox video game “Halo.”
According to Variety, Wyatt has to leave the upcoming production of “Halo” due to changes in the production schedule. For those not steeped in the deep mythology of the video game universe, “Halo” tells the story of a group of soldiers, led by the mysterious Master Chief, in an interstellar war with a group of aliens known as the Covenant.
“It’s with great disappointment that changes to the production schedule of ‘Halo’ prevent me from continuing in my role as a director on the series,” Wyatt said. “My time on ‘Halo’ has been a creatively rich and rewarding experience with a phenomenal team of people. I now join the legion of fans out there, excited to see the finished series and wishing everyone involved the very best.”
Gary Levine, Showtime’s president of programming, said, “Showtime’s adaptation of ‘Halo’ is evolving beautifully with rich characters, compelling stories and powerful scripts. Obviously, the production demands of this series are enormous, and we have had to add time to the schedule in order to do it right. Sadly, this delay has created a conflict for Rupert, whom we warmly thank for all he has brought to the project.”
This is far from the first time that “Halo” has suffered a setback on its way to a live-action debut. The Showtime series started life as a feature film written in 2005 by Alex Garland. However, what happened over the subsequent years saw various writers and directors come aboard and leave the project, including names like Neill Blomkamp, Guillermo del Toro, and Peter Jackson.
And as mentioned, this is not the first time that Wyatt has experienced scheduling conflicts that led to his departure from a high-profile project. Back in 2016, after being hired to direct the constantly—in-development-and-will-never-see-the-light-of-day “X-Men” spin-off “Gambit,” the filmmaker left for the very same reasons as now.
That being said, Wyatt does have a new film on the horizon, as “Captive State” is scheduled to hit theaters in March 2019.