JJ Abrams Comfirms Portal and Half-Life Movies Still Happening

During the press junket for Bad Robot’s latest horror suspense movie 10 Cloverfield Lane, the studio’s founder, director, writer, and producer JJ Abrams confirmed that film adaptations of the lauded Valve video games Half-Life and Portal are still in development, and both have writers attached.

The Star Wars: The Force Awakens director gave the update during an interview with IGN, assuring fans that Bad Robot’s collaboration with Valve, which was first announced at DICE 2013 summit. Abrams appeared on-stage with Valve founder Gabe Newell three years ago

“Not yet, but they’re in development,” Abrams told IGN, when asked if we’d be seeing the Half-Life and Portal adaptations any time soon. “And we’ve got writers, and we’re working on both those stories. But nothing that would be an exciting update.”

While Abrams has confirmed the projects are on-going, they don’t sound much further along than when they were revealed three years ago. Back in 2013, Polgyon reported that Bad Robot had attached writers to both projects, but that they were in the early pre-production stages.

a Portal and Half-Life movie are things I want to see,” Abrams said at the time. “We’re also aware of the cautionary tales of movies that became games and vice versa. Our goal here to 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.”

Abrams, though, did add the caveat, “It’s as real as anything in Hollywood ever gets.”

Image courtesy of Arcade Sushi.