Spielberg is in aggressive negotiations to produce Halo, a story about a cybernetically enhanced human super soldier, and his artificial intelligence companion, Cortana. Rumor is Spielberg was massively impressed by the script turned in by Stuart Beattie.
Spielberg is also looking for the next DreamWorks tent pole movie with distribution over at Walt Disney, after losing Transformers to Paramount in the separation. Spielberg thinks Halo will be the ticket, and besides that Spielberg is a intense gamer according to Shia LaBeouf.
"I get there and stick my head in to ask if he's ready-and this is classic Spielberg-he says, ‘Nope, Shia. I'm trapped!' " LaBeouf then starts playing both parts-concerned protégé and faraway mentor:
"You're trapped? Steven, what are you talking about?"
"I'm trapped back here. Follow my voice."
"Where are you?"
"Over here... Here... Here!"
LaBeouf kept following the calls until he got to the director's office. And there was the master himself: shoes off, socks on, dressed in shooting gear, but sitting behind a computer, stuck on the fifteenth level of a first-person shooter called BioShock.
"This is like months to get to this level, and he can't get past this one little mysterious spider god, and he's losing his mind. He's like, ‘I can't do it, Shia! I can't do it.' "
CAA, who rep both Spielberg and Stuart Beattie, is pushing these negotiations into over drive.
Sounds good to me. I would have liked to see Peter Jackson's take on Halo, but it looks like Johnny and I will get to see Jackson's take on Sci-fi this Friday night at the Portage IMAX Theater while watching and reviewing District 9. Hopefully Spielberg gets the Halo gig. Imagine how awesome a video/comic movie would be with the most successful director in Hollywood sitting in the Producers chair.
