Backrooms Director Visits Valve HQ After Expressing Interest In Portal Movie

The Backrooms in its short lifespan has quickly become a cornerstone for engagement on the internet. From the YouTube videos in 2022, culture online has been shaped around the phenomenon. Even video games as well. We saw the welcoming of The Backrooms 1998 just this past year across all major consoles already.

Additionally, Blackbird Interactive & Secret Mode launched Escape The Backrooms – a 4-player, co-op experience that delves into the depths of the internet labyrinth. Just this past May in anticipation for the A24 motion picture, Escape the Backrooms hit XBOX & PlayStation. And this week continued the trend with a Nintendo Switch 2 version as well.

For creator Kane Parsons, The Backrooms is a culmination of different things that influenced him in adolescence. One of those inspirations is Valve’s Portal. In May, Parsons spoke with The New York Times revealing he sourced a lot of creative drive from the Valve IP alongside Half-Life. Pop culture reporter Kyle Buchanan on X also disclosed that Parsons interest in a film adaptation for Portal and is already looking into it.

While Parsons is adamant to working on original IP for future films, he did tell Buchanan that the only exception would be franchises that shaped him when growing up. “I’m not too interested in IP work. I pretty much entirely want to focus on original projects just because, you know, because I do this it’s my way of processing life as is art. And I typically find needing to step into someone else’s view of life tends to kind of damage point for me.

“So the only ones I would look at are ones that shaped my own experience of life so much that I feel like I have something to do with that.” Parsons later went on to visit Valve headquarters as revealed on his Instagram Story. If it were true that Parsons is in discussion to work on a Portal film, he would not be the first YouTuber-turned director interested in the series. Before Predator Badlands, Dan Trachtenberg released a Portal short film ‘Portal: No Escape’. 

Are you hoping that Kane Parsons might direct a Portal film?

Source: The New York Times