It seems that the director of the moment, Kane Parsons—fresh off the box office success of his horror film Backrooms—is considering the idea of a film based on Portal, the legendary video game produced by Valve. The news broke following an interview with The Town, in which Kane Parsons discussed his upcoming film and stated that he isn’t interested in working on other intellectual properties, “aside from one or two things” he’s been passionate about since childhood, and that negotiations are already underway.
Rumors immediately spread that Kane Parsons was referring to Portal, the legendary puzzle game series by Valve, Kim Swift, and Erik Wolpaw, in which players must navigate increasingly treacherous test courses using portals…and which obviously had a strong influence on the Backrooms film series starting with the original short film.
Getting back to the matter at hand, shortly after The Town’s interview went viral, New York Times reporter Kyle Buchanan chimed in with his own scoop: “I’ve seen people speculate that Kane Parsons was referring to a potential Portal movie,” Buchanan wrote on X. “I asked him in early May if he was interested in directing just such a film, and he replied that he was already thinking about it, ‘with great caution and great curiosity.’”
Whatever the future may hold, there is, understandably, a great deal of buzz surrounding 20-year-old Kane Parsons, who has become the youngest director to top the U.S. box office with Backrooms. The film, which explores the unique horror of liminal spaces and is perfectly timed for today’s society of emptiness, features a cast including Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve and has already grossed nearly $150 million at the box office on a budget of just $10 million. He is definitely the director of the moment, alongside Zach Cregger and another newcomer, Curry Baker of Obsession.
Portal, meanwhile, has remained largely dormant as a franchise since its 2011 sequel, aside from a few appearances or Easter eggs in other titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Minecraft. But perhaps we’ll start thinking in terms of portals again?
