Kane Parsons, the young director behind The Backrooms, has been spotted in an unusual place: Valve’s offices. This visit is the latest in a long string of hints that Parsons might be making a movie based on Portal, one of the filmmaker’s personal favorite games.
News of Parsons’ visit came to us from the director’s own Instagram account. In it, Parsons shared a picture of a pretty spectacular sunset taken inside Valve’s headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. With its striking lighting and dreary staging, the photo looks like it might have been taken in Valve’s own corner of the Backrooms.
This isn’t the first time Parsons has stopped by Valve’s offices, either. Back in June, the filmmaker shared a selfie of himself taken right next to the building’s iconic Valve statue. Parsons seems to have deleted the post, but Reddit users were able to archive it.
Parsons has never been shy about his love for Valve’s games, especially Half-Life and Portal. Speaking with The New York Times, Parsons cited the latter as a massive inspiration for his filmmaking, and he even revealed to IGN’s Tom Hergeson that a sound effect from Half-Life made it into the finished version of The Backrooms. But that’s not the main reason people are convinced Parsons might be working on a Portal movie.
In an interview with Letterboxd, Parsons admitted he’s always dreamed of making a film based on Portal, and he even said he already has a very clear idea of what his take on Aperture Science would look like, and it sounds pretty awesome, honestly.
“There was one specific thread that really stuck with me when I was younger which was throughout the first game, and more so in the second game when they’ve solidified their art direction,” Parsons explains. “You can see these murals on the wall; you can clearly see traces of another human being in this place. And there’s some specific moments in the [Backrooms] film with these murals.”
For many years, the chances of us getting a Portal movie have been rather touch-and-go. Director J.J. Abrams announced in 2013 that he planned to adapt the world inside Aperture Science to the big screen, but the project seems to have sputtered out, leaving the door wide open for Parsons to step in. And if Valve is open to him stopping by their offices, he might already have a blessing Abrams never formally received.
If you’ve seen The Backrooms and played Portal, the inspiration the latter had on the former is undeniable, and it would be amazing to see what a Portal movie helmed by a passionate fan like Parsons would look like. It’s too early to know anything for sure, but if Parsons’ cheekiness is any indication, things may already be moving behind the scenes.
