Like many great successful fictional properties, be they novels, comic books or video games, Hollywood comes knocking looking to cash in on the story.
There's nothing wrong with that, as the films have given us wonderful depictions of comic books and even amusement park rides, but Valve isn't keen on having any outside help on making the Half-Life movie.
While the set up of Black Mesa and City 17 seem perfect for a sci-fi movie, Valve's Gabe Newell feels that nobody in Hollywood would be able to make the Half-Life movie that the developer would want to see.
In an interview with PC Gamer, Newell related a time after the release of the first Half-Life: "There was a whole bunch of meetings with people from Hollywood. Directors down there wanted to make a Half-Life movie and stuff, so they’d bring in a writer or some talent agency would bring in writers, and they would pitch us on their story. And their stories were just so bad. I mean, brutally, the worst. Not understanding what made the game a good game, or what made the property an interesting thing for people to be a fan of."
Newell made it clear that it's not a talent problem, as he admits to being a World of Warcraft player, but not one that is excited to see what Sam Raimi does with the movie.
"That’s when 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.’ And I was like, ‘Make it ourselves? Well that’s impossible.’ But the Team Fortress 2 thing, the Meet The Team shorts, is us trying to explore that."
How would you feel about a Half-Life movie done like the Team Fortress 2 series?
