Fourteen years after it was first announced, the Halo movie has become something of a myth to franchise fans. Although Halo is still a money-making machine in terms of its success, the promised Halo movie never happened, with Microsoft, Fox, Universal, and a slew of big-name directors and producers throwing fists over almost every aspect of the movie.
Microsoft had badly wanted Guillermo del Toro to direct the movie, but Neill Blomkamp was chosen instead, only for the movie to change hand and enter development hell. Still, del Toro had pitched a few ideas for the script while in talks to direct the movie, and according to an interview with IGN, one of those ideas had included creating an evil twin brother for Master Chief.
The information comes by way of Halo environment designer Paul Russel, who also came up with the franchise title and is considered the “father of Halo”. Russel, along with a number of other original Halo developers, guest-starred in the newest episode of IGN’s “Devs React to Speedrun” series. Russel notes about an hour into the episode that early on in the Halo movie’s planning stage, del Toro had been hanging out with “Joe” (likely Halo 1’s writer and cinematic director Joseph Staten) when he pitched the idea.
“[Del Toro] was punching Joe on the arm and going, ‘And they’re brothers! And they’re going to fight at the end!’” Russel recounted. Apparently, Master Chief’s hypothetical evil twin would have been allied with The Flood, with the movie’s climax pitting brother against brother in what would no doubt be a fight to end all fights. Thanks to Pacific Rim, we know del Toro probably could have pulled it off—maybe in a happier universe.
The other panel members reacted with disbelief, and the episode moved on before Russel could elaborate further on del Toro’s Halo vision. Although the idea that Master Chief could have an evil twin brother—created by Guillermo del Toro, no less—sounds like something from a fever dream, Russel seemed confident he could confirm the pitch’s validity by reaching out to del Toro.
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