Fox Signs Halo Deal Less than a year after its plans to co-produce with Universal a movie based on Halo, Microsoft's hit video-game franchise, fell apart, 20th Century Fox has signed a deal to become the primary licensor for Halo, Variety reported.

That means the studio will handle worldwide merchandise licensing for Halo on behalf of the tech giant.

Though the unsuccessful film development helped bring the two companies closer together, Fox's licensing division has a longer relationship with Microsoft. It handled similar duties for Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo: Elements of Power, two Microsoft-published games that came out in late 2005 in conjunction with the launch of the Xbox 360.

Fox is aiming to launch a broad array of products, from books to apparel to collectible merchandise, in conjunction with the release of Halo 3 in September.

Fox is already in various stages of discussion with several dozen licensees and will be talking to potential partners at this week's Toy Fair in New York. (Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.)

Thanks to scifi.com