It’s been more than three years since ValveannouncedStar Wars: The Force AwakensdirectorJ.J. Abramswould be developing video gamesPortalandHalf Lifeinto movies. The filmmaker stillpromisesthey are on the way, but updates have been slow to arrive. Today brings our latest tidbit onPortalfrom Abrams, who says an announcement on the project is coming soon.
“We have a meeting coming up next week with Valve,” he toldIGNon the red carpet for HBO’sWestworld, which Abrams created and executive produced. “We’re very active, I’m hoping that there will be aPortalannouncement fairly soon.”
He also offered further explanation of seeking out writers to develop the project, though he didn’t name names:
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 playingHalf LifeandPortal, 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.
Watch video of Abrams discussPortalbelow.
For those who are still scratching there head over whatPortalis, it’s a video game set in Aperture Science Laboratories and sees players playing with space and objects by creating — as the title suggests — portals.Dan Trachtenberg, who directed the Abrams-produced10 Cloverfield Lane, brought the game alive with a short film called “Portal: No Escape” that centered on a woman waking up in a room with no memory of who she is or how she got there.
The first game doesn’t really have much of a narrative, but the second game,Portal 2, fleshes out the history of the setting, Aperture Laboratories, and the backstory of the villain, the artificial intelligence running the experiments, GLaDOS.
