Fact From the Vapor of Nuance

Gabe Newell and J.J. Abrams Said a Thing and Then the Internet Exploded

by Susana Polo | 4:16 pm, February 6th, 2013

What were Gabe Newell, founder of game studio Valve, and J.J. Abrams, now for-better-or-for-worse the undisputed master of the two biggest science fiction franches in Hollywood history doing in the same room? They were delivering the keynote conversation of the D.I.C.E. Summit, an annual gathering of video game executives.

What was the sentence the internet went crazy over? Well, I’m not putting it above the jump, it’s basically the entire story! Go on. Click.

Said Newell:

We’re going to try and figure out if we can make a Half-Life movie or a Portal movie together.

How real is it, J.J. Abrams?

It’s as real as anything in Hollywood ever gets…

Oh, fantastic.

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.

There you have it, folks. Gabe Newell, a man whose company is famed for taking forever to make anything, and J.J. Abrams, now the third busiest guy in Hollywood (after Joss Whedon and Guillermo del Toro) would like to collaborate at some point. Now, maybe if they had a producer attached, I’d be daydreaming about a Portal movie and who I’d cast as Chell. But this has only slightly more reality to it than Jurassic Park IV, and slightly less than the Justice League movie. Which is not a lot.

I wouldn’t hold my breath. Except in the presence of deadly neurotoxin.

(via Joystiq and Polygon.)

Kate Falanga

Too much awesome. Can …. not…. handle ….
http://www.facebook.com/SF224668 Stephen Fogarty

The portal effect would be pretty easy to produce if you just use two giant, colored lens flairs. :P
Anonymous

I like J.J. Abrams but he’s no good when he spreads himself thin. All his tv shows did not have the same quality.
Lady Viridis

This would be awesome except I have a sneaking suspicion that Hollywood will manage to take everything awesome about Portal and shunt it down the drain in favor of the same tired cliches. ): I mean, look how badly they managed to ruin Avatar: the Last Airbender, a show that is made of at least 75% awesome.
Anonymous

It’ll be interesting to see if they *insert protagonist here* talk, or if they do it as more of a silent movie
http://twitter.com/LauraTruxillo Laura Truxillo

I’d kinda like to see a TF2 series. Just little wacky daily life episodes.
Jamie Jeans

Bet you 50 bucks they cast a white woman in the role of Chell… >_<

*looks down*

Oh… Lens Flare jokes. How original.
Anonymous

But that wasn’t Hollywood in general ruining it, it was M. Night Shyamalan ruining it. On purpose. I still think he just held a deep-seated grudge against the TV show – there’s a special feature on the book 2 DVD where someone interviews him about the movie he is (going to be) making, and he goes off on a speech about how he wanted to direct the movie because his kids watched the TV show over and over and over and over and over. In 2007 that seemed like a cute story, but now…
Anonymous

Lens flare jokes are getting a bit passé, so how about “This was a test; the film is a lie.” instead? ;)
http://twitter.com/NickyEnchilada Nicky

An TF2 series sounds amazing. It would fit pretty well in the 11 minute short format. Also Gabe also mentioned on The Nerdist that they wanted to make a fully animated cg TF2 movie buuuuut…the valve team working on the project figured that “MAKING A MOVIE IS HARD” and decided that they’re going to make a 15 minute short film instead.
Lady Viridis

I don’t know that it was entirely M.Night’s fault. The director has a lot of influence but is not the only power behind a movie; you’ve got the producer and the casting people and probably most important, the executives paying for everything. From the early interviews, it seemed like M.Night genuinely enjoyed the show and wanted to make a movie because he liked the source material.

Now, some of the disaster that was the Last Airbender might have been because M.Night’s style of moviemaking just did not gel with the lighthearted feel of Avatar, but I really do get the sense that there was a lot of executive meddling behind the scenes. Maybe I’m completely wrong, but I do know that whenever you make a movie, you’ve got hundreds or thousands of people working on it, and when things turn out badly it’s usually not only one person’s fault.

The point is that Hollywood is notoriously reluctant to do anything outside their normal formulas, much like the video game industry. Portal was hugely outside the normal formula for video games, which is why the first game was a tiny little project packed in with a much bigger game that was supposed to be the best-seller. Its success was completely unexpected. For a movie, the games certainly have enough plot to make it work. But I don’t know that Hollywood would be willing to make a suspense thriller that has a tiny cast, several of them robots or disembodied voices, with the two women as main characters. It’s too outside their formula. I guarantee you that Hollywood would much rather fund a movie about all the male Aperture scientists working to make GLaDOS and then being horribly killed. They would rather tell Rattman’s story instead of Chell’s.
Betty Windsor

I wish they could just wait a few more years, and pick someone else who isn’t the “hot topic” of today. I know it’s all speculation, but there are so many other talented film makers out there who could take an opportunity like this and create a film that is completely faithful to the game. I mean, give someone like the Portal:No Escape director the opportunity. We short film makers would actually try really hard! I promise. :(
Rizz Rustbolt

Chell’s easy to cast. Jasika Nicole. Boom, done.
http://twitter.com/LauraTruxillo Laura Truxillo

Meh, 15 mintues sounds like plenty, honestly. I can’t see it really working well as a long format movie, but their shorts have been brilliant.
Anonymous

Hmmmmmm, honestly I’d prefer it if anyone who made the great Portal and Half Life fan flicks on Youtube were just given a bigger budget.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJqoTRnxjQM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4drucg1A6Xk