Showtime Boss Says Halo TV Series Won't Have 'Gratuitous Game Violence'

After confirming that Halo hero Master Chief will be a central part in the upcoming Halo TV series last summer, TV Guide was eager to get an update on the series from Showtime executives at the Television Critics Association winter press tour. While the show itself is still in development, we did learn a few important details about the discussion currently happening behind closed doors.

The Halo franchise -- in which gamers suit up as space marines with an arsenal of high-tech weaponry to use against aliens -- is one of the most popular in gaming, but as a first-person shooter, it's also included in the debates about how and if games like this should be part of the cultural conversation surrounding gun violence in the U.S. When adapting something so controversial for television, decisions about how to properly honor the source material while also being responsible about depictions of gun violence are paramount.

When TV Guide asked Showtime's President of Programming, Gary Levine, about the issue, he reassured us that these discussions are happening with the creative minds behind the Halo TV series, and their goal is to find a good balance within the series.

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"These are soldiers of war and there will be violence, but it's not going to be gratuitous game violence," he said. "There are real, human stakes in our adaptation, and so when there's violence there will be ugly consequences."

As for when we can expect this series to hit our screens, it sounds like that's still a long ways off mostly because the scale of this kind of project has to be colossal given that there's going to be a heavy CGI component to the series. Levine says conversations about just how much CGI will be needed for the series are still ongoing.

"It is a very large production, very demanding," he said. "We're having conversations with directors, with producers, and with VFX people. It's an extensive process."

(Disclosure: TV Guide is owned by CBS Interactive, a division of CBS Corporation.)

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