Last October, millions of video gamers cried out in anguish as Microsoft said a movie project based on its best-selling “Halo” franchise was being postponed indefinitely. The pain was all the more acute since the company had enlisted ”Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson to shepherd the film through production. 

Nearly a year later, the project is still in limbo, but Microsoft hopes next week’s release of “Halo 3″ will jumpstart interest in transferring Master Chief’s adventures to the silver screen.

“I think the the ‘Halo 3′ hoopla … is creating a lot more interest in Hollywood and people are not just dismissing it as another losing video game adaptation,” said Brian Jarrard, franchising lead at Bungie, the Microsoft studio that created “Halo”. “I am pretty confident that we will have more people coming around talking about the movie.”

“Once there started to be some turmoil, I’m thankful it (the “Halo” movie) did get cut. We’d rather have the right movie made with the right partner at the right time rather than crank something out. It’s a matter of when, not if,” Jarrard said.