J.J. Abrams Plans Portal & Half-Life Films

JJ Abrams seems to want to get into the Guinness Book Of Records for being the busiest man on the planet, as he’s busy finishing Star Trek Into Darkness, has signed on to make Star Wars: Episode VII, as well as developing a seemingly endless slate of movies through his Bad Robot Production Company.

Now he’s got a couple more major movies on his plate, as he’s in the early stages planning movies based on Valve’s hit video games Portal and Half-Life. The director appeared at the 2013 DICE convention, alongside Valve co-founder Gabe Newell, where he spoke about the video game adaptations, as well as a video game idea that he wants Valve to work on.

Gabe Newell commented, “We’re super excited about that and we also want to talk about making movies, either a Portal movie or a Half-Life movie.”

Half-Life, which was first released in 1998, is about theoretical physicist Gordon Freeman, who opens a gateway between his New Mexico laboratory and another world known as Xen, which is inhabited by terrifying monsters. Portal is a spin-off of Half-Life, which follows a test subject tasked with finding a rival company’s device that can open portals into space.

Abrams was keen to point things are still in the very early stages, saying “It’s as real as anything in Hollywood ever gets. Which is that we are really talking to Valve, we are going to be bringing on a writer, we have a lot of very interesting ideas. And both a Portal and Half-Life movie are things I want to see. We’re also aware of the cautionary tales of movies that became games and vice versa. Our goal here is to treat the world Valve has created in both these properties like anyone would a book or some great story that comes from a pitch or original script – just to treat it with the respect they treat their games and their players with.”

It’s still a very long way from happening, but there are a lot of people out there who’d love to see Abrams take on both Portal or Half Life (even if he’s more likely to produce than direct). (Source: Variety)