J.J. Abrams says that the Half-Life and Portal films are still on the way

It's been quite some time since J.J. Abrams and and Gabe Newell, head of Valve, announced that they would be joining forces in order to develop movie adaptations of both Half-Life and Portal. Since then we've heard almost nothing about either of those video-game projects, but J.J. Abrams gave a brief update to IGN while they chatted about 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE. Abrams didn't have much to say when asked for an update, other than to confirm that development was still moving ahead.

Not yet, but they’re in development. And we’ve got writers, and we’re working on both those stories. But nothing that would be an exciting update.

Even a complete video-game neophyte like myself knows that Half-Life is one of the biggest games of all-time, so when games like Need for Speed and Angry Birds have already undergone the videogame-to-film adaptation process, it's a little puzzling that it's taken so long to get this project off the ground. Dan Trachtenberg, director of 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE, caught the attention of many with his short film PORTAL: NO ESCAPE several years ago, which showed off how a PORTAL film could look.