Just Cause and Halo in the videogame crossover spotlight

by Stevie Smith - Aug 11 2009, 16:00

Hollywood’s ongoing penchant for (laughably bad) videogame crossovers looks set to continue following reports that open-world action title Just Cause is heading for the big screen and director Steven Spielberg is throwing his weight behind the movie adaptation of Bungie’s massively popular Halo series.

According to Variety magazine, the movie licensing for Avalanche Software’s Just Cause, which is a free-roaming adventure game centred on a fictional South American revolution, has been picked up by Hollywood producer Adrian Askarieh.

Askarieh has amassed prior experience with videogame properties after helping Twentieth Century Fox create the celluloid interpretation of IO Interactive’s Hitman in 2007, which starred Deadwood’s Timothy Olyphant as the baldly iconic Agent 47.

“Hitman was a very successful movie for Fox, and I wanted to find a similar project in terms of its genre, international appeal and ability to do for a price, but do it independently in order to maximize the creative and financial upside that a project like this could generate,” Askarieh explained to Variety regarding the future of Just Cause. 

Beyond attempting to secure some $30 million in independent financing for the production of Just Cause, Askarieh is also actively maintaining his relationship with IO Interactive and is presently working on a Hollywood crossover of the studio’s violent crime caper Kane & Lynch: Dead Men.

In related news, the ‘on again, off again’ movie development of flagship Xbox title Halo appears to be approaching ‘on again’ after film Web site IESB reported that Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks is currently engaged in “active negotiations” with Microsoft to purchase the film rights to its Halo property.

According to unnamed IESB sources, Mr. Gamemountain was drawn to the project after being “blown away” by a recent Halo script rewrite that spilled from the pen of none other than Collateral screenwriter Stuart Beattie, who has also written Australia, 30 Days of Night, Pirates of the Caribbean, and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

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