Hollywood is still searching for its first truly great movie based on a video game; most of them have been pretty bad. A few of them have made money at the box office, and some have been entertaining. But we’re still waiting for the Iron Man of video game movies. However, it’s possible Academy Award nominated screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns already has the idea, an adaptation of the video game Portal which the screenwriter believes is the “best story ever." We just need a studio to let her write it.
Krysty Wilson-Cairns also wrote Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho, and the writer and director are part of the newest episode of our own ReelBlend podcast. On the show, the two were asked if there were any aspects of their careers they were haunted by and Wilson-Cairns then revealed that she’s haunted by the script she never got to write, an adaptation of Valve’s puzzle-platformer, Portal. She explained...
I’m haunted by the things I didn’t get to write. You know the video game Portal? I was pitching to do an adaptation of that and I love that video game, obsessed with it. It was quite early on in my career. And I came up with what I think is the best story ever, and I pitched it, and they were like 'nah.' And sometimes at night I play scenes from that in my dreams. That’s the only thing I’m haunted by is that I didn’t get to make the Portal movie.
Wilson-Cairns doesn’t reveal who exactly she was pitching on this Portal idea, and she doesn’t go into detail regarding exactly what the pitch was, because there’s still the smallest chance that the movie could happen. Nobody has made the Portal movie yet.
Portal and its sequel Portal 2 are a pair of video games that are often sighted among the best ever made. The game functions like a first person shooter, but instead of a gun that fires bullets, your gun fires two portals. Place a red portal and a blue portal in two different places on the map, and you can walk through one to arrive at the location of the other. This simple game mechanic is used in a variety of creative ways to make a puzzle game loved by millions.
It’s also one of the funnier games ever made, with the primary antagonist of the first game, and the reluctant sidekick of the second, being a sarcastic artificial intelligence named GLaDOS. Also, she sings.
Unfortunately, it’s possible that somebody else is writing this movie as we speak. J.J. Abrams’ studio Bad Robot had struck a deal with video game developer Valve back in 2013 to turn both the Portal and Half-Life franchises into movies. While things were quiet for a long time, earlier this year, J.J. Abrams claimed a script was being written for a Portal movie.
Krysty Wilson-Cairns first professional writing credits were right around the time Bad Robot acquired the rights, so it’s very possible that when she says she made this pitch early in her career, she was talking to Bad Robot. Why they passed on the best idea ever is anybody’s guess. If it’s because she had yet to prove herself as a screenwriter, clearly, she’s now shown just what she’s capable of creating.
When a fan of Portal says she has the best idea ever for a movie based Portal, it's impossible to not want to know more. Will Krysty Wilson-Cairns' Portal be relegated to be one of history's greatest movies never made? C'mon Bad Robot, let's take another meeting and try this again.
