‘Halo’: Pablo Schreiber To Star In Showtime Series Based On Xbox Franchise

American Gods actor Pablo Schreiber has been tapped as the lead in Halo, Showtime’s anticipated series based on the Xbox video game franchise.

Schreiber will play Master Chief, Earth’s most advanced warrior in the 26th century and the only hope of salvation for a civilization pushed to the brink of destruction by the Covenant, an unstoppable alliance of alien worlds committed to the destruction of humanity.

In addition, newcomer Yerin Ha will play a new character within the Halo world: Quan Ah, a shrewd, audacious 16-year-old from the Outer Colonies who meets Master Chief at a fateful time for them both.

The series is produced by Showtime in partnership with 343 Industries, along with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television. Production will begin this fall in Budapest, Hungary.

Halo reinvented how people think about video games and has grown into a global entertainment phenomenon, having sold more than 77 million copies worldwide and grossing more than $60 billion in lifetime sales worldwide. In its adaptation for Showtime, Halo will take place in the universe that first came to be in 2001, dramatizing an epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant.

Schreiber is an Emmy nominee for his performance in Netflix’s Orange is the New Black. His recent television projects include American Gods and The Brink. He will next be seen in the limited series Defending Jacob opposite Chris Evans. Upcoming, he will be seen in the independent films The Devil Has a Name and Lorelei. He’s repped by WME, Circle of Confusion and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.

Ha hails from Sydney, Australia, where she has starred in theatre productions of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Colby Sisters, The Changeling, Caucasian Chalk Circle and the Australian premiere of I Walk In Your Words. In 2017, she starred in a short film for the Australian Chamber Orchestra. She recently landed a major role in Australia’s prestigious Sydney Theatre Company’s groundbreaking adaptation of Lord of the Flies.

Otto Bathurst will helm multiple episodes and will executive produce the live-action series, which has Kyle Killen (Awake) serving as writer, executive producer and showrunner.

Killen and Steven Kane (The Last Ship) serve as co-showrunners and executive producers. Halo is also executive produced by Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey for Amblin Television in partnership with 343 Industries, director Otto Bathurst and Toby Leslie for One Big Picture, Scott Pennington for Chapter Eleven, and Karen Richards. The series will be distributed globally by CBS Studios International.