Steven Kane On Adapating ‘Halo’ & Pressure From Video Game Fandoms

Halo showrunner Steven Kane has delivered an emotional plea for today’s industry gatekeepers to resist the temptation to “let the data drive the creative.”

Kane said there is a “risk” commissioners become overly reliant on data and that neuters the creative, likening the situation to how “I used to use a map but now I just put the GPS on.”

He said there is a “danger” when big players become too fixated on how fans are reacting to shows that they “get afraid of taking chances.”

“They think, ‘You’re going to be boring for four seconds and we can’t have them bored they’ll go on their phone so please make sure you explain again’,” he added. “How can you pander to that?”

Kane said there have always been natural story beats to hit but “when it becomes cynical is when you let the data drive the creative.” “It’s when you are told the algorithm says the script is boring because ChatGPT says so,” he added. “The audience should be the final contributor and if they give you feedback you don’t just look at the note, you find the note behind the note and think why isn’t this working?”

Kane said showrunners “have to have the authority to be the author but also can’t be blind to the data.” “It is useful but you have to be mindful that there is messiness and there is time to be pensive,” he added. “It’s a double edged sword.”

He thought back to the days when “Nielsen had people writing in notebooks how long they were watching” and contrasted this with “Netflix data asking, ‘Are they engaged, are they watching?’.”

He delivered an emotional plea at Seriencamp in Cologne for creatives and commissioners not to “lose the humanity behind the storytelling.”

Pressure “times a billion” on video games

Kane has made a career out of adapting big IP but that doesn’t mean he avoids the pressure from fans.

Pondering the difference between adapting books into shows compared with video games, he said games come with a serious amount of stress because of the fandoms.

“If you read a book and saw the movie version then said, ‘I like the book better,’ well that pressure is times a billion with [adapting] a game,” he said on a panel at Seriencamp. “The fans will hate everything you do at first. You have to accept that comes with the territory and the game company doesn’t want to destroy the IP either – it’s a lot of pressure. There is a huge responsibility to the fans.”

Kane showran Paramount+‘s Halo adaptation and did the same for Season 4 of Prime Video’s Jack Ryan along with TNT’s The Last Ship, the latter of which is based on a book.

On Halo, he said he had “20 years of history and a transmedia world that already existed” to grapple with. “Everyone has their own take on what Halo is,” he added. “So now you are beholden to the IP and don’t want to screw it up.”

Regardless of the pressure, Kane said selling shows is “1,000% easier if IP is involved.”

Creatives should therefore convince buyers their new ideas could become IP even if they aren’t based on IP, he explained.

He revealed he has just sold a show to ABC and said he told commissioners at pitch, “If this is successful it could be franchised.”

“You have to convince them there is a world in this, it can be something big,” he added. “You think about how to pitch something to make it become IP.”

He said the best IP can be old yet with an ability to look at it “from a different lens,” using the example of how Succession is loosely based on Shakespeare’s King Lear, a Bard tale that has been adapted numerous times.

“You realize the relevance,” he added. “You are not just pandering, not just reselling something. It’s one of the best ways of using IP instead of a cynical, ‘Let’s catch an audience with what we already have’ approach.”

Seriencamp runs until tomorrow. Speakers have included HBO Max Germany boss Anke Greifeneder and Skins co-creator Bryan Elsley.