Showtime confirms Master Chief as the lead in Halo show and more story details

It has been a long road to the Halo show produced by legendary director Steven Spielberg for Showtime. The show was announced in 2013 and since this year… we’ve heard next to nothing other than “It’s still happening!” Now, we’re getting a bunch of new details as the show gears up for a 2019 start date.

At the Television Critics Association press tour today, Showtime president of programming Gary Levine gave a bunch of juicy new details on the highly anticipated show including that Master Chief himself will be the “lead protagonist” but won’t be the only main character. Levine also said the show is a massive “enormous undertaking” and they’re currently aiming for a 2020 air date.

CEO David Nevins and Levine talked about the show and were quick to deny that it was Showtime’s Game of Thrones in terms of a big budget show that draws in tons of viewers.

“It is a very different genre, it’s futuristic, space-based science fiction, it’s not fantasy,” Nevins pointed out. “It took us a long time to get the script but we felt like we had something that was really interesting and felt like it belonged on Showtime in terms of its character depth, and it’s gonna be a big show.”

Levine also went on to talk about how they hired writer Kyle Killen to come in and serve as the show’s writer and showrunner.

“We made a conscious decision to hire a writer not known for sci-fi and not known for big battle movies, because that’s already baked into the Halo franchise and we will service that, but we also wanted to ensure that we were getting beneath the formidable armor of the Spartans and really getting inside the team drama so it felt like it belonged on Showtime,” Levine added. “As David said, our hopes and dreams are that it will have enormous appeal to Halo fans and will also appeal to Showtime drama fans.”

As for how they’ll work with a character like a faceless character like Master Chief, Levine says that it “is a key question and an important part of our series, is all I’ll say.” They’re also very keen on making it an original story that abides by the Halo canon. “It is a new story but we are being incredibly respectful of the canon and working with the Microsoft 343 people to be sure we don’t violate any of that.”

The show has no specific air date but Showtime is aiming for 2020.