Valve and J.J. Abrams Discussing Making a Game, Maybe a Half-Life or Portal Movie

It was announced a while back that film director J.J. Abrams and Valve’s co-founder Gabe Newell would be keynoting the opening of D.I.C.E 2013, a summit for game developers and press. Today, during that keynote, the two mentioned their genuine interest in making both a game and, potentially, a feature film surrounding a Valve title.

“There’s an idea we have for a game that we’d like to work with Valve on,” said Abrams. Newell then added, “We’re super excited about that and we also want to talk about making movies, either a Portal movie or a Half-Life movie.”

To get people jonesing with the idea, the dynamic duo ran some clips showcasing each other’s career of work – featuring bits from none other than Half-Life 2 and the first-person-dizzy-fest that was Cloverfield. Each was followed up by a discussion on what works and what doesn’t in each medium, given their experience in their respective fields.

“I love the experience of playing your games,” Abrams told Newell. Newell mentioned a scene from Cloverfield in which a woman explodes, and claimed it was “one of my favorite moments in any of your movies.”

Newell went on to mention that much of this has already been discussed, and that much more could likely take place:

“What we are actually doing here, we are recapitulating a series of conversations going on. We reached the point that we decided to do more than talk.”

Is this an official confirmation of a project? Of course not. After all, Mr. Abrams has quite a bit on his plate – what with a new Star Trek film and heading up an entire new leg of George Lucas’ gargantuan Star Wars franchise. The same applies for Mr. Newell — he’s got this whole Steam Box deal to worry about, not to mention this Dota 2 thing they’re working on.

However, we hope to hear more about this potential converging of worlds soon.

[Source: Polygon]