Film producer J.J. Abrams and Valve co-founder Gabe Newell are teaming up to make video games and movies.
The two made the surprise announcement on Thursday, near the end of a discussion they held at the 2013 D.I.C.E. game developer summit. The two talked about the advantages and disadvantages of both films and video games, but no one expected the two to announce a collaborative project.
The partnership between Abrams' Bad Robot studio and Valve will yield a few interesting ventures, including film versions of the popular video games "Half-Life" and "Portal."
"It's as real as anything in Hollywood ever gets," Abrams said to Polygon. "Which is that we are really talking to Valve, we are going to be bringing on a writer, we have a lot of very interesting ideas."
"And both a Portal and Half-Life movie are things I want to see," he added. "We're also aware of the cautionary tales of movies that became games and vice versa. Our goal here to is to treat the world Valve has created in both these properties like anyone would a book or some great story that comes from a pitch or original script - just to treat it with the respect they treat their games and their players with."
This isn't the first time film developers have expressed interest in Valve's games, though Newell has said in the past that he turned everyone down because their ideas were all terrible. Presumably, that means Abrams' team has some pretty good ideas.
Valve movies sound good, but what about a J.J. Abrams video game? That project is real as well, but details were nonexistent. The only thing we do know is that the game will be a completely new project, unrelated to any Valve games ("Portal," "Team Fortress," "Half-Life") as well as Bad Robot properties (so no "Cloverfield" game, either). That's probably good news, though, since it'll be interesting to see what the two studios create with complete freedom.
"We are at early enough stages that I can't talk about it now, but I can't wait to talk about it," Abrams said in a separate Polygon article. "The opportunity to work with Valve is something I couldn't be more excited about."
