Gabe Newell of Valve announced Half-Life and Portal movies were in-development at the 2013 DICE Summit. J.J. Abrams, wrapping up Star Trek Into Darkness at the time, was attached to develop both projects. There hasn’t been a peep since.
That is, until IGN caught up to Abrams at the Westworld premiere.
"We have a meeting coming up next week with Valve, we’re very active, I’m hoping that there will be a Portal announcement fairly soon,” said Abrams.
And that’s it. Abrams said some other vague stuff, but it’s not going to tell you anything new about the Half-Life or Portal movie:
"We are having some really interesting discussions with writers, many of whom...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, what’s the movie of this, 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."
While it sounds like we’ll be hearing about the Portal movie first (maybe we’ll even get a casting announcement for Chell!), it’s the continued existence of the Half-Life movie that’s most interesting for the future prospects of Valve. Half-Life 2: Episode Two came out in October of 2007, so what’s the use of a Half-Life movie if there weren’t a Half-Life game in the works as well?
Perhaps the Half-Life movie could even tie into Half-Life 3?
Now that J.J. isn’t so busy with Star Wars we might soon know.
