It appears that a new movie is headed to China, and it looks a lot like Halo. A promotional movie poster for a flick named 天马行空, which translates to Unstoppable, has started to materialize this past week. However, Unstoppable's possible protagonist looks near identical to the beloved hero of the Halo titles and Xbox's mascot, the Master Chief.
Halo Infinite is one of the most anticipated games of this upcoming holiday season, and the multiplayer showcase during Microsoft and Bethesda's E3 Showcase recently very much blew fans away. As a franchise that has been a fan-favorite for decades, it is almost impossible to get any detail past Halo fans, so it is not surprising that a Chinese movie possibly knocking off Halo would instantly raise eye-brows in the gaming community.
The movie poster for Unstoppable shows a character that looks like the Master Chief standing upright against a destroyed, futuristic, and overrun city. If it weren't for the promotional information for the movie itself, the image could easily fool some fans in believing that it was some new picture for the campaign of Halo Infinite. But alas, this is indeed the film Unstoppable.
What is additionally comical is that Xbox Weibo appears to have seen the movie poster and has chimed in on the shenanigans. Weibo is one of the biggest social media platforms in China and can be compared to Twitter. The Xbox Weibo page noted the Unstoppable name in a post and reminded fans that Halo Infinite is releasing this fall.
Another important thing to note is that some were wondering if this movie was even real, based solely on how blatant the rip-off nature of the poster is. The protagonist quite literally looks like a flipped image of the Master Chief from 343 Industries. However, additional research into the name of the film will result in finding the cast of the film standing directly in front of the promotional image for the movie, so yes, it appears to be real.
If genuine, Unstoppable would certainly not be the first time the region has taken liberties and inspiration from other IPs and patents. Just recently a $35 knockoff Nintendo Switch was sold out of China, for example, and a Vii that was sold to resemble the Nintendo Wii was popular a decade ago as well. It does not appear that anything will stop these counterfeit movies, games, and consoles anytime soon.
Halo Infinite is scheduled to launch for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S holiday 2021.