"The Halo movie in its initial incarnation is dead. No one is pursuing it any more," said Beattie to GameDaily. Beattie's script, written during the Hollywood writers' strike, got Bungie's attention and the writer is now in talks with Microsoft. "I'm just a fan and I desperately want to see a Halo movie out there," he added.

Beattie, himself a gamer, thinks that appreciating the game is essential to making a successful adaptation. "You need to love the game ... I can't just adapt a game for a film unless I've played it and liked it," he commented.

The new script is based on Halo: The Fall of Reach, the novel by Eric Nylund taking place before the current trilogy of games. "[My script] sets up a world 500 years in the future and we have colonies, there's the UNSC, there's the secret Spartan training program. And you see this six-year-old kid kidnapped in the middle of the night," said Beattie.