It's been several years since Valve, the studio behind the Portal and Half-Life games, announced that they had joined forces with J.J. Abrams in order to give their games the big-screen treatment. Since then we've heard little about either project, other than Abrams confirming that they were still in development, but Abrams is now teasing that we should be hearing an official announcement about the PORTAL movie fairly soon.
While speaking with IGN on the red-carpet for HBO's Westworld, J.J. Abrams said that "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.” Abrams obviously didn't spill any details about either project, but he did say that they're working with writers who really "get" what Half-Life and Portal are all about.
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.
I've said before that I'm not the biggest gamer in the world so I can't comment on the story-line behind either property, but the interesting visuals and tech of Portal are quite appealing and could definitely provide the backbone for a fun adventure film, provided that Abrams and Valve give us something beyond simply showing off how cool the Portal gun is.