8. Halo
If ever a video game seemed perfect for a cinematic adaptation it was Halo. A cultural phenomenon as well as a critical and commercial success, it has a built-in fanbase that would go and see it in their droves. Alex Garland of 28 Days Later fame wrote a script back in 2005 and in a co-production Fox and Universal agreed to make the movie. A mouth-watering dream team of Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro were in place to executive produce and direct respectively, but del Toro backed out and a then unknown Neil Blomkamp was going to helm the project. Even with Fox and Universal splitting the costs of production, the film was seen as not financially viable and various stops and stars happened in production as the two studios and Jackson haggled over money. Blomkamp declared the film dead in 2007 though Jackson still remained optimistic about its fortunes. Since then, Blomkamp and Jackson collaborated on the surprise hit District 9 and Halo's rights went back to Microsoft, who at one point looked like they might try and finance the movie themselves. Very little has been heard of the project until late when Blomkamp expressed interest in revisiting Halo and coincidentally a month later Steven Spielberg announced a tv series adaptation that would be part of Xbox One's original tv programming. Halo, after many years looks as if it finally might be climbing out of development hell.