Director of The Backrooms movie revisits Valve headquarters, possibly to shoot a Portal-themed film

The Backrooms director Kane Parsons was recently spotted at Valve headquarters again and shared images from the visit on his personal social media. Given that he has repeatedly expressed his love for Portal in the past, the visit has once again sparked speculation about a Portal movie.

At just 20 years old, Kane Parsons has already become one of the most closely watched young directors in recent years. His feature debut, The Backrooms, was made for about $10 million but went on to earn roughly $393 million at the global box office, while also winning praise from many film fans and critics alike. Even Hideo Kojima has publicly praised the movie.

The Backrooms began as an urban legend concept on the 4chan forum, before gradually growing into a vast online creative community and spawning a wave of indie horror games, artwork, and YouTube videos.Parsons himself rose to fame through the The Backrooms YouTube series he created, ultimately becoming the director of the A24 film adaptation.

As The Backrooms continues to find success, Parsons has recently started showing up in a number of eyebrow-raising places, including Valve headquarters.

On September 16, sharp-eyed fans noticed that Parsons posted a video to his Instagram Story, and the floor-to-ceiling-window room shown in the footage is located at Valve headquarters.

Notably, this isn't Parsons' first visit to Valve. Back in June, he also stopped by Valve headquarters and shared photos from the visit on Instagram.

Two visits to Valve in such a short span of time, combined with Parsons previously speaking publicly about his love for Portal, have led more and more fans to wonder whether the two sides could be working together on some kind of project based on a Valve game.

In an interview with The New York Times this May, Parsons said that making a Portal movie was his "dream project", and added that Portal had been a major influence on his work.

And his love for Valve’s games clearly goes beyond just words. In a previous interview with IGN, Parsons all but admitted that he had secretly slipped a sound effect from Half-Life into The Backrooms.

Still, getting Portal onto the big screen won’t be that simple.

Back in 2013, renowned director and producer J.J. Abrams announced that he would produce a Portal movie through his company Bad Robot. A Half-Life film project was announced at the same time, but neither project has seen much tangible progress in the years since.

In 2021, J.J. Abrams said in an interview with IGN that the Portal movie was still moving forward at Warner Bros.. However, in the five years since then, there has been no major news about the project.

Parsons’ repeated visits to Valve have also sparked speculation among fans, with many wondering whether Valve has changed course and is preparing to work with the director of The Backrooms.

Some fans said, "How long have J.J. Abrams' Portal and Half-Life movies been in the works by now—since 2013? If Kane really wants to make a Portal movie, I don't see any reason Valve would stop him."

Another fan said, “Portal was previously planned as an adaptation by J.J. Abrams, but thank goodness it never ended up getting made. So I think there really is a decent chance this time.”

However, as of now, neither Valve nor Kane Parsons has officially announced that a Portal movie is in production. It remains unclear what project Parsons’ latest visit to Valve is connected to, but after he repeatedly expressed interest in Portal, two back-to-back appearances at Valve headquarters have undoubtedly pushed the long-dormant film plan back into the spotlight among players.