I haven’t really been a gamer post my Sega Genesis years, so I’ll leave the particulars of Paramount+’s new upcoming series, Halo, to the fans who’ve dabbled amply with the Xbox games the show is based on. As for the series teaser that just debuted for the eighth Annual Game Awards livestream on Thursday, it looks like a pretty rich and well done sampling of what lies ahead for its premiere next year.
As a live-action series exclusively for Paramount+, HALO will take place in the universe that first came to be in 2001 with the launch of Xbox(R)’s first “Halo” game. Dramatizing an epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant, HALO the series will weave deeply drawn personal stories with action, adventure and a richly imagined vision of the future.
The series stars Pablo Schreiber (“American Gods”) as the Master Chief, Spartan-117; Natascha McElhone (“Californication”) as Dr. Halsey, the brilliant, conflicted and inscrutable creator of the Spartan super soldiers; and Jen Taylor (“Halo” game series, RWBY) as Cortana, the most advanced AI in human history, and potentially the key to the survival of the human race. Additional stars include Bokeem Woodbine (“Fargo”), Shabana Azmi (“Fire”), Natasha Culzac (“The Witcher”), Olive Gray (“Half Moon Investigations”), Yerin Ha (“Reef Break”), Bentley Kalu (“Avengers: Age of Ultron”), Kate Kennedy (“Catastrophe”), Charlie Murphy (“Peaky Blinders”) and Danny Sapani (“Penny Dreadful”). Also joining the cast as original characters are Ryan McParland (“6Degrees”), Burn Gorman (“The Expanse”) and Fiona O’Shaughnessy (“Nina Forever”).
The show hails from Showtime, produced in association with 343 Industries and Amblin TV. Steven Kane exec produces alongside Steven Spielberg, Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey for Amblin with 343 Industries, director Otto Bathurst and Toby Leslie for One Big Picture, and Kyle Killen and Scott Pennington for Chapter Eleven. Kiki Wolfkill, Frank O’Connor and Bonnie Ross exec produce for 343. The series is distributed internationally by ViacomCBS Global Distribution Group.
