J.J. Abrams: Portal Movie Announcement Coming 'Fairly Soon'

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It's been a few years since these rumors started so I'm not getting too excited just yet. Besides, J.J. Abrams never said it would be a positive announcement, he just said he would be talking to Gabe Newell and that an announcement was coming "fairly soon." ;)

"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 told IGN. "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."
 
So another low substance, high flash, Abrams nostalgia cash in production?
 
Bandalo said:
Portal made a great game. I think it's going to make a terrible movie.
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actually I think it will be ok. The issue with most games to movies is that you are trying to take a really complex story and turn it into 1.5 - 2 hours. With Portal there is little to the actual story. Person wakes up and then makes their way through puzzles to get to AI that is controlling everything. So let's say 30 minutes for the opening and end battle so an hour of puzzles to get through apature science. Game only takes about 7 - 8 hours so basically you are cutting out some of the fluff to get a tighter story. I could see it working out ok
 
Exavior said:
actually I think it will be ok. The issue with most games to movies is that you are trying to take a really complex story and turn it into 1.5 - 2 hours. With Portal there is little to the actual story. Person wakes up and then makes their way through puzzles to get to AI that is controlling everything. So let's say 30 minutes for the opening and end battle so an hour of puzzles to get through apature science. Game only takes about 7 - 8 hours so basically you are cutting out some of the fluff to get a tighter story. I could see it working out ok
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I think the characters are the problem. Really Portal only had ONE character, GlaDOS. The player was mute and never did anything but solve puzzles. If you include Portal 2, you have 2 characters, maybe 3 if you add Cave Johnson to the mix. I don't know if you could make a 90 minute movie out of that. At least not a GOOD movie. There's just not enough plot, the game was more about the puzzles.
 
Bandalo said:
I think the characters are the problem. Really Portal only had ONE character, GlaDOS. The player was mute and never did anything but solve puzzles. If you include Portal 2, you have 2 characters, maybe 3 if you add Cave Johnson to the mix. I don't know if you could make a 90 minute movie out of that. At least not a GOOD movie. There's just not enough plot, the game was more about the puzzles.
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And there are a few ways around that.

1. Make Chell talk, the only solving puzzle part is fine.
2. Make this a story about whoever came before Chell and left the messages on the wall.
3. You could even make the movie be about the events with Cave Johnson and when apature science was being built.

thesmokingman said:
I can see it being something like Cube from 1997.
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Exactly.
 
The Talos Principle would be a better candidate, but I still doubt I would support it.
 
I'm surprised a Portal Movie project is.....





....still alive.

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I found the games for whatever reason wildly fun, but I also found them to be WAY to short, I then played through again and explored around more etc and it still felt to short, but I enjoy puzzles. I do think the games had enough of a base story to start a movie, but not enough to have a movie based off the games, they will need to add a good deal to make a good movie out of it, however, all considered, they will probably make a flashy showing, add nothing of substance to the story already there and try to make a quick buck off of it. If it does not go down that way, you can color me happily surprised. Assuming it ever gets made at all.
 
JJ Abrams...Great throw in Michael Bay and we can have a massively epic steaming pile o crap.

Hated everything they have both done...unless you like mind candy. They have absolutely no skills in set design or more importantly character development. All bling special effects and nothing else.
 
Video game based movies generally suck, but portal could be an exception, especially with Abrams behind it.

Not because Abrams is fantastic, but because he is expensive, and if they are bringing him in, it means they are willing to spend money on the project.
 
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could we work on HL3? or at least the next episode of HL2? I mean... it's been more than a year. Stuff like this must be distracting to the big goals!

..i'd still watch it :(
 
Yaka said:
why the fuck cant movie studios leave games and animes alone
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Because they ran out of original ideas. Thats why there is so many superhero movies, the whole script is written for you already, you just have to film it.
 
nvgrim said:
Because they ran out of original ideas. Thats why there is so many superhero movies, the whole script is written for you already, you just have to film it.
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It's not that there aren't original ideas. It's that studios won't fund the original ideas.

Original ideas are risky. They could be a huge success, but they could also bomb losing millions.

In today's climate, studios are risk averse, and are thus willing to settle for boring rehashes of existing stories that are all but guaranteed to make at least a little money, rather than going for gold and risking a flop.

I don't see this changing any time soon. At some point people will become fed up with it and actually stop paying for movies, but before they actually realize that people are tired of rehashed crap, we will probably go through another few roudns of blaming it on piracy before they actually change their ways.

In the mean time we are seeing a resurgence of well written original TV shows, as so much of the top writing talent - unable to find work or get their work funded by major film studios, are finding it an easier sell to TV networks.

I'm not sure this is a terrible thing. I've thoroughly enjoyed some VERY good TV shows over the last 15 years that otherwise probably wouldn't have existed.
 
won't be able to see the portals, too much lens flare. Movie will be lots of flashy moves and leave you with the feeling of staring at the sun.
 
Darunion said:
won't be able to see the portals, too much lens flare. Movie will be lots of flashy moves and leave you with the feeling of staring at the sun.
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I understand this comment. I hated all that shit in Star Trek. The lens flares were ridiculous, and the constant handheld jittery camera motion was annoying as all hell.

But not all his films are like that. I thought he handled Star Wars pretty well.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I understand this comment. I hated all that shit in Star Trek. The lens flares were ridiculous, and the constant handheld jittery camera motion was annoying as all hell.

But not all his films are like that. I thought he handled Star Wars pretty well.
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Mission: Impossible III is still his best movie. I also have to give props to the man for giving us the first television show (Fringe) I watched religiously since Star Trek: TNG.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I understand this comment. I hated all that shit in Star Trek. The lens flares were ridiculous, and the constant handheld jittery camera motion was annoying as all hell.

But not all his films are like that. I thought he handled Star Wars pretty well.
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Oh i fully agree. It was so crazy in star trek I can't ever let it go. Star wars was much better, I feel like he took a much better approach to it.
 
All right, I've been thinking, when Valve gives you Portal, don't make a Portal Movie! Make Valve take the movie back! Get mad! I don't want your damn movie! What am I supposed to do with this? Demand to see Valve's manager! Make Valve rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson a Portal movie! Do you know who I am? I'm the man whose gonna burn your house down - with the movie! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible movie that'll burn your house down!
 
Darunion said:
won't be able to see the portals, too much lens flare. Movie will be lots of flashy moves and leave you with the feeling of staring at the sun.
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I've seen all his movies. Had a great time. My eyes still work fine.

What's with all the irrational nerd-blubbering about Abrams? He's a good director. I can't take any criticism of his work on Trek seriously, most of TOS is corny and just plain bad and I love it anyway.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
It's not that there aren't original ideas. It's that studios won't fund the original ideas.

Original ideas are risky. They could be a huge success, but they could also bomb losing millions.

In today's climate, studios are risk averse, and are thus willing to settle for boring rehashes of existing stories that are all but guaranteed to make at least a little money, rather than going for gold and risking a flop.

I don't see this changing any time soon. At some point people will become fed up with it and actually stop paying for movies, but before they actually realize that people are tired of rehashed crap, we will probably go through another few roudns of blaming it on piracy before they actually change their ways.

In the mean time we are seeing a resurgence of well written original TV shows, as so much of the top writing talent - unable to find work or get their work funded by major film studios, are finding it an easier sell to TV networks.

I'm not sure this is a terrible thing. I've thoroughly enjoyed some VERY good TV shows over the last 15 years that otherwise probably wouldn't have existed.
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I have to disagree slightly. Yes studios don't like to take the risk on original ideas but mainly because the average person doesn't want original. They want predictable, they want repeats, they want what they know. How else do you end up with multiple versions of NCIS, Law and Order, CIS and all those reality shows if people weren't still watching every version of them? Even the actor that you get to play in the movie matters as if it isn't the same A list person that you see over and over nobody really cares most of the time. Look at something like the Bourne series. Based off a book that was made into 2 made for TV movies back in the late 80s. Then about 13 years later was remade as a new movie series.

Why didn't something like Boyhood become a huge breakthough for how original that movie was. You will never again see a movie filmed like that. But most people don't care. Some might, but the average person won't.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
I've seen all his movies. Had a great time. My eyes still work fine.

What's with all the irrational nerd-blubbering about Abrams? He's a good director. I can't take any criticism of his work on Trek seriously, most of TOS is corny and just plain bad and I love it anyway.
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People get but hurt over everything these days.
 
So... why not just make another game? I doubt anything done in a portal movie will be as interesting or fun as another portal game instead.
 
yourgrandma said:
So... why not just make another game? I doubt anything done in a portal movie will be as interesting or fun as another portal game instead.
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Because movie studios don't make games.... that could be a good part of it. Or do you want JJ Abrams to learn how to code to get his ass busy coding the new game?
 
DeathFromBelow said:
I've seen all his movies. Had a great time. My eyes still work fine.

What's with all the irrational nerd-blubbering about Abrams? He's a good director. I can't take any criticism of his work on Trek seriously, most of TOS is corny and just plain bad and I love it anyway.
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Just me making a joke about my opinion of his work on star trek, which I did not like. Sorry that my opinion bothers you so much lol.
 
Kor said:
So another low substance, high flash, Abrams nostalgia cash in production?
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I don't think you can get people in the theatres with nostalgia alone with portal. It's not that old to have a feeling of nostalgia. At least to me it doesn't feel like that. Plus it is not mainstream . It was a popular game sure, but it didn't get much attention outside the inner circle of nerds.
 
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