Denzel Washington rumored; Spielberg musings squashed

You can tell people are ridiculously anxious for more information about the in-development Halo movie when the entire Internet freaks out over one sentence on a movie news site. In Dark Horizons' news bites section for Tuesday, they mentioned rumors pointed to Denzel Washington taking up the role of Master Chief in the Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings, King Kong) executive produced film.

Dark Horizons is a reliable movie site that's been reporting on the industry for years, but people are probably jumping on this rumor a little fast. First of all, wouldn't Washington make more sense for the Sgt. Johnson role (edit: not Captain Keyes as originally written. Luke's gonna kill me!)? It seems more likely Washington is currently in talks to signing onto Halo for the outspoken military officer, though we're certainly not against him strapping on the green armor, either.

We'll have to wait until more becomes official; Bungie's made clear the gears of Hollywood move slowly.

In other news, the widespread rumor that Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds) would be taking up the director's chair for Blizzard's World of Warcraft seems to have proven false. Apparently no story ran in Variety, despite Yahoo!'s claims to the contrary, and several movie sites have confirmed with sources inside DreamWorks that Spielberg's slate is already full.

Spielberg fan site SpielbergFilms.com went straight to Spielberg's office for some answers about the RPG film. They also outlined his schedule, pointing out the logistical issues WoW would cause for Spielberg. "Steven Spielberg's offices have told us in no uncertain terms that Mr. Spielberg will not be directing 'World of Warcraft.' The project is in development, but not with Mr. Spielberg attached," reports the fan site.

The bottom line: we don't know much. Just like the videogames industry, rampant and unsubstantiated rumors and speculation are the norm in Hollywood.

News-Source: www.1up.com