What just happened? Are you in the minority of people who enjoyed Paramount+’s Halo TV show? If you do fall into this category, here’s some bad news: the streamer has canceled the game adaptation after just two seasons. However, the producers are reportedly looking to see if anyone else would like to pick it up and continue the series.
With Pablo Schreiber taking on the role of the often helmet-less Master Chief John-117, the Halo series has certainly proved divisive – this writer lasted a few episodes into season 2, which ended in March, before giving up.
Now, Paramount+ has decided to call time on the project. “We are extremely proud of this ambitious series and would like to thank our partners at Xbox, 343 Industries and Amblin Television, along with showrunner and executive producer David Wiener, his fellow executive producers, the entire cast led by Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief and the amazing crew for all their outstanding work,” the company said in a statement to THR. “We wish everyone the best going forward.”
343 Industries said it deeply appreciated the millions of fans who have propelled the Halo series into a “global success,” and it remains committed to broadening the Halo universe in different ways in the future.
The Halo series had a long gestation period. There were multiple attempts to turn the long-running FPS franchise into yet another video game movie before work on a series began at Showtime a decade ago. A series order arrived in 2018, and it was moved to Paramount+ in 2021.
This might not be the end of the Halo show. THR sources say its producers – Amblin, Xbox, and 343 Industries – are looking to move to another streaming channel for the third season, and Paramount+ is said to support the move. There’s a long list of shows that made a comeback on a new network after being canceled, including Lucifer, You, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Expanse, and Futurama, so there’s still some hope for Halo.
The question is whether people would even want to see Halo return. Fans of the games have been particularly upset about Master Chief spending so much time with his helmet off, among many other reasons. The fact that Amazon’s Fallout arrived to universal praise and has earned Ghoul actor Walton Goggins an Emmy nomination has made Halo look even worse.
