A Half Life movie is one of those projects that’s been rumoured for eons but has always seemed like a slightly dodgy idea. And it seems Gabe Newell and the crew at Valve feel the same. The head honcho behind Half Life, Portal and Left 4 Dead says he wouldn’t trust Hollywood with a Half Life movie and would rather do it himself instead…
In an interview with PC Gamer, Newell reveals that film industry folk have been circling Valve ever since Half Life was released but that none of their cash-in movie proposals had much appeal. He says: “There was a whole bunch of meetings with people from Hollywood. Directors down there wanted to make a Half Life movie and stuff…their stories were just so bad. I mean, brutally, the worst.”
Newell says the biggest problem with Hollywood pitching a Half Life movie is that they just didn’t get what makes it work: “They had no understanding of what made the game a good game or what makes the property an interesting thing for people to be a fan of.”
But that doesn’t mean we won’t ever get to see a Half Life movie. Newell just thinks Valve should make it themselves. He explains: “We started saying ‘Wow, the best thing we could ever do is to just not do this as a movie or we’d have to make it ourselves.’…the Team Fortress 2 thing, the Meet The Team shorts, is us trying to explore that.”
The Team Fortress 2 shorts are funny but could Valve really turn its hand to making a full length Half Life movie? Marvel has certainly managed to make better super hero flicks since it started its own studio but would the skills Valve have honed creating games translated to cinema? We’d love to find out but maybe Valve should focus on getting Portal 2 first.
Would you turn out for a Half Life movie? Hit the comments to let us know and give us your suggestions for the actor you’d like to see as Gordon Freeman.
Out TBC | £TBC | Valve (via PCGamer)
