Game-maker Valve and J.J. Abrams will collaborate to try to bring Half-Life or Portal to movie screens, and maybe bring some of J.J. Abrams' science fiction magic to the gaming world, according to an interview at the 2013 DICE Summit in Las Vegas today.
Appearing alongside Valve's CEO Gabe Newell, Bad Robot Productions owner J.J. Abrams stated, "There's an idea we have for a game that we'd like to work with Valve on." The collaboration appears to be a two-way street, as Newell 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."
According to Polygon, Abrams also expressed a wish to approach both game-based movies and his input on a Valve game differently than others have previously.
"Our goal here is to treat the world Valve has created in both of these properties like anyone would a book... just to treat it with the respect they treat their games and their players with," said Abrams, later adding, "We're not looking to make a movie in the gaming world... we're looking forward to taking some of our strengths and collaborating...I think they need to both be approached very differently."
Abrams has not offered any specifics on what his collaborative video game may be with Valve.
Another video game/film director collaboration was announced in December of 2010, when life-long game enthusiast Guillermo del Toro announced a survival horror game trilogy called "inSANE." The game was in development and slated for release this year, but was cancelled last summer by troubled game publisher THQ. del Toro, who owns the property now, is still trying to produce inSANE with another developer.