Halo Legends, the seven-story anime anthology based on the popular videogame franchise, is due out on DVD from Warner Home Video on February 9th. Produced by five of Japan's top anime studios including Production I.G., Bones, Toei, Studio 4*C, and Casio Entertainment, Halo Legends was supervised by Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Skycrawlers) and Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed). Directors of the individual segments, which range from 10 to 17 minutes in length, include Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed), Hideke Futamura (The Animatrix), Daisuke Nishio (DBZ), Toshiyuki Kanno (Black Lagoon), Hiroshi Yamazaki (Karas), Koichi Mashimo (Blade of the Immortal), and Koji Sawai (Patlabor). Halo Legends follows the template of earlier anime anthology films The Animatrix and Batman: Gotham Knight, which, thanks in part to their association with popular properties, proved to be among the bestselling anime DVDs ever released in the
Halo Legends explores the origin and historical events of the Halo universe and its intriguing characters. Halo franchise development director Frank O’Connor and managing editor Kevin Grace provided narrative input for the Halo Legends segments. Considered by many to be the epitome of “first person shooter games,” Halo has generated over a billion dollars in sales for Microsoft. More than 27 million Halo games have been sold worldwide.
Warner Home Video is planning a major marketing campaign for Halo Legends that will include TV and radio spots as well as significant online promotions with Xbox LIVE, iTunes, and Amazon. WHV will also put trailers for Halo Legends on appropriate winter DVD releases that should generate an estimated 10 million impressions.
The Halo Legends anthology, which is rated “PG-13,” will be available in 3 DVD formats. A single-disc version will have a suggested retail price of $19.95. A 2-Disc Special Edition, which will contain several hours of bonus features including a “making-of” documentary covering all seven stories, plus a feature on the history of the Halo phenomenon, will have an MSRP of $29.98. The Blu-ray Edition, which will have an MSRP of $34.98, will include all of the extras from the Special Edition plus “Halo: The Story So Far,” which examines the narrative of the videogame through Halo 3.