Halo movie out of turnaround?

What we heard: This week, reports began to surface that the Halo movie saga had taken another turn. Over nine months after the Master Chief's first big-screen foray was indefinitely postponed, many underground film outlets began reporting that the project was back on. Among those heralding the would-be blockbuster's return to the production pipeline was Latinoreview.com, which first leaked the first draft of the film's script. (Warning: Script leak contains profanity.)

The reports which did bother listing a source linked back to Variety and/or Hollywood Reporter stories. Those two pieces outlined how movie studio 20th Century Fox had entered into a "strategic partnership" to be the "primary licensor" for the Halo franchise. Since Fox was co-financing the Halo film with Universal and Microsoft, many sites made the logical deduction that the deal meant that production on the project had restarted.

Just one problem--neither article says explicitly that work on the Halo film has resumed. In fact, both merely outline how Fox will expand "the [Halo] brand's licensing and merchandise program" to include more products than the tchochkes currently offered at the Bungie Studios store and the forthcoming McFarlane Toys figurines.

"The addition of the Halo brand is a tremendous addition to our licensing portfolio," Elie Dekel, executive vice president at 20th Century Fox Licensing and Merchandising, told the Reporter. Steve Schreck, Microsoft Game Studios' director of franchise development said the agreement would lay "a solid foundation for the expansion of the property into new products, retail markets and territories."

The official story: With both Hollywood trades not giving any updates on the Halo movie's status, it came as no surprise that Microsoft was itself tight-lipped. "We have no new information to share with respect to a Halo movie," was all a rep would say.

Bogus or not bogus?: Bogus that pre-production on the Halo movie has officially resumed. Likely that it will, in some form, if Halo 3 meets expectations.