IGN’s Lucy O’Brien spoke with filmmaker J.J. Abrams on the red carpet of Abrams’ HBO show, Westworld, about updates on movies based off of the cult classic video games Portal and Half-Life. And, as you might have expected, there wasn’t a whole lot to talk about.
“We have a meeting coming up next week with Valve,” Abrams said. “We’re very active. I’m hoping there will be a Portal announcement fairly soon.”
This comes as good news to fans of the Valve puzzle game and first-person shooter and video gamers as a whole. With the rise of movies like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Warcraft, perhaps it’s time that the stigma of video game-based movies being horrendous is put to rest.
And if anyone can do it, Abrams can.
Based off of his latest success, Star Wars: The Force Awakens (which accrued over $2 billion worldwide), and the many other successes that Abrams is famous for (Star Trek movies, Lost), fans should be extremely excited that he is at the helm of the project.
If Star Wars is any indication that he cares for a product’s original fan base, then Abrams has proved that he takes care of his audience—enough so that he will always do his best to make sure that his adaptation is faithful to the fan base and original storyline.
“We are having some really interesting discussions with writers,” Abrams said, “many of whom are crazy obsessed. Once you said you’re doing a movie or show about a specific thing that is a known quantity, you start to find people who are rabid about these things. As someone who loves playing Half-Life and Portal…it’s incredible when you talk to someone who just gets it. It’s like, ‘Oh, my God. It’s really the seed for this incredible tree you’re growing.’ I look forward to being able to talk about it and who is working on it”
The original announcement of the movie adaptations of Portal and Half-Life took place during DICE 2013, but due to their early development, both Abrams and Valve are keeping their cards close to their chest. Neither of them have revealed very many details at all, stating only that the developmental portion of the movie process has only just begun.
While as of right now we may not know any dates or potential cast members, all fans of these games should be excited. But where is Half-Life 3?!
