Kane Parsons is fueling rumors of a potential Portal movie after he posted photos from his visit to Valve’s offices on his personal Instagram profile.
At just 20 years old, Kane Parsons is one of the most successful young filmmakers in history. His debut movie, Backrooms, grossed roughly $393 million at the global box office against a comparatively small $10 million budget, earning high praise from critics and fans alike.
Even acclaimed video game director Hideo Kojima lauded the movie, which is based on a 4Chan creepypasta greentext that has sprawled into a massive fan-made universe with oodles of spinoff indie horror games, artwork, and YouTube videos like the ones that made Parson the obvious pick to helm A24’s film adaptation.
The future is looking bright for Parsons, and he’s been visiting a few high-profile spots in the wake of Backrooms’ success… including the offices at Valve. Eagle-eyed fans were quick to spot a video on the filmmaker’s Instagram stories on September 16, which showed a windowed room in Valve’s HQ at sunset.
This isn’t the first time Parsons has paid Valve a visit; he also dropped in back in June, similarly sharing photos from his trip on Instagram. These posts are making fans more hopeful than ever that there’s some kind of collaboration brewing with one of Valve’s games, especially given his public love for Portal.
Speaking to the New York Times in May, Parsons admitted that making a Portal film was a “dream” project for him, and said that the game was a big inspiration for his own work. This isn’t a huge surprise, as he all but admitted to sneaking a Half-Life sound effect into Backrooms in an interview with IGN’s Tom Jorgensen.
There could be a snag in bringing Portal to the silver screen, though, as JJ Abrams was originally attached to lead a film adaptation of the game through his production company, Bad Robot. This was first announced in 2013, alongside news that he would also be making a Half-Life movie, though things have been stagnant ever since.
Speaking with IGN in 2021, Abrams claimed that Portal was still in the works at Warner Bros., but we haven’t heard anything about the project in the five years since then. This fact has not gone unnoticed by fans, many of whom are hoping against hope that Valve has decided to pivot and work with Parsons, instead.
“I mean, how long [has] that Portal and Half-Life movie been in production by J.J Abrams, like what… 2013? “If Kane is really gung-ho about making a Portal film, then I don’t see Valve wanting to stop him,” one fan wrote on X.
“Portal was already supposed to get an adaptation from JJ Abrams, thank God that didn’t happen. So I’d say there’s a decent chance of it happening,” another speculated.
For now, the futures of these possible Portal and Half-Life films are up in the air… but Parsons is making it easy to imagine what his take on Valve’s iconic game franchises would look like.
Virginia Glaze
News Editor
Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.
