1. Portal
Huh? The
Portal games serve as a kind of oddity within the video game arena for one simple reason: they managed to make puzzle games feel like something else entirely - something fun and fresh and action-orientated. As Chell, a lowly lab assistant, players were tasked with making their way through the Aperture Science facility, all whilst a sarcastic, menacing computer program, named GlaDOS, attempted to kill them. To aid their quest, players used the now infamous "portal gun," which allowed them to open up seperate doorways and instantaneously travel the distance between the two by stepping inside: an instant teleporter at your fingertips. The experience proved to be something close to mind-blowing - the way Valve tackled their idea using a rare and twisted sense of humour made the original venture a minor classic, whereas the second -
Portal 2 - defied expectations and transformed what might've appeared to be a relatively one-note idea into a unique and rewarding experience with a proper story and everything. It didn't that hurt that Valve are the geniuses behind the Half-Life series, given their esteemed reputation and flare for scriptwriting. And it's J.J. Abrams of
Lost and
Super 8 fame who has signed up to help get this thing off the ground. And he's agreed to work (thank God) with Valve directly at his side.
Could It Work? You know what? As much as the idea of a
Portal movie thrills me, I'm still dubious about how it might work up on the big screen. Can you craft an entire movie around the idea of a portal gun? No: so that's where a much larger story would have to come in, and their are certainly seeds in
Portal 2 that might be used to in this regard. But you're still faced with the fact that your concept is a portal gun: it's kind of essential that that idea stays at the core. The again, if anybody can work out how to tackle this thing right, it's J.J. Abrams and Valve. Together, I really think that they could definitely make this thing a success - it's just finding the right story, and not using one that feels stretched into a feature length screenplay. To direct
Portal, though? I think somebody like Neill Blomkamp (
District 9, Elysium) would be perfectly apt(erture). Sorry, couldn't help that one.
Looking forward to any of these movies? Let us know in the comments section below.