I did not try playing Portal until after I saw the amazing fan made short film based on the game. At that point, I knew it was a unique property worth the big screen treatment. And, it is looking like it may be happening now.
Valve, the studio behind Portal and Half-Life, has not ventured out to try and make movies on their games, but they may have found a partner in J.J. Abrams who can help bring their stories to life. At the 2013 DICE Summit, Abrams and Valve honcho Gabe Newell were discussing storytelling and let the following tidbits out.
Abrams said, “There’s an idea we have for a game that we’d like to work with Valve on,” according to Polygon. Newell responded, “We’re super excited about that and we also want to talk about making movies, either a Portal movie or a Half-Life movie.”
With Abrams slate now permanently full with STAR TREK and STAR WARS projects, I would think he was referring to producing the films via his Bad Robot banner. Bad Robot has shown to be a great home for science fiction and original ideas that would gel perfectly with the worlds of Half-Life and Portal. Who knows, maybe that short film will become a reality.