A television series based on the popular video game franchise Halo will be premiering on the Paramount Plus streaming service on March 24th – and with nearly two months to go before the first season of the show starts airing, we’re already hearing that Halo will be getting a new showrunner for season 2. David Wiener, who served as co-executive producer on the first two seasons of Fear the Walking Dead and developed the Peacock series adaptation of the Aldous Huxley novel Brave New World, is in talks to become the season 2 showrunner… when and if Paramount Plus officially orders the second season.
Justin Falvey, who executive produces Halo with Darryl Frank and Steven Spielberg through Amblin Television, is confident there will be a second season – in fact, he says Amblin expects to produce “several” seasons of the show.
Variety explains that Kyle Killen was hired to be the Halo showrunner in 2018, and was joined by Steven Kane in 2019. Kane became the primary showrunner when Killen left the project before season 1 even started filming. Kane stuck with the show through production, but never intended to work on it for more than one season. Kane said,
It’s such a big world that it takes ten times more work and energy than any normal show. It can’t be done remotely, so I was in Hungary for close to two years out of the three I was working on it. As much as I enjoyed every minute of it, it’s a long time to be away from my family.”
The Halo series will center on Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief,
Earth’s most advanced warrior in the 26th century and the only hope of salvation for a civilization pushed to the brink of destruction by the Covenant, an unstoppable alliance of alien worlds committed to the destruction of humanity.
Schreiber is joined in the cast by Natasha McElhone as Dr. Halsey, “the brilliant, conflicted and inscrutable creator of the Spartan super soldiers”; Jen Taylor as Cortana, “the most advanced AI in human history, and potentially the key to the survival of the human race”; and newcomer Yerin Ha as a new character named Quan Ah, “a shrewd, audacious 16-year-old from the Outer Colonies who meets Master Chief at a fateful time for them both.”
Bokeem Woodbine, Shabana Azmi, Natasha Culzac, Olive Gray, Bentley Kalu, Kate Kennedy, Charlie Murphy, and Danny Sapani will also be appearing on the show.
The Halo series is said to “weave deeply drawn personal stories with action, adventure, and a richly imagined vision of the future.”
Showtime and video game developer 343 Industries are the producers of Halo. In addition to the executive producers mentioned above, the series is also executive produced by Otto Bathurst, Toby Leslie, Kiki Wolfkill, Frank O’Connor, and Bonnie Ross.