It's been a long while since we've heard anything about the video game adaptations Portal and Half-Life. Neither movie has a release date, but according to producer J.J. Abrams, both movies are still happening. Though how far off into the future they may be has not been determined. The projects are set up as a joint venture between J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot and Valve, the company behind the two games.

J.J. Abrams has been out promoting his latest project 10 Cloverfield Lane, which he also produces. He caught up with IGN, who asked about the two video game movies. While the Star Wars: The Force Awakens director didn't have a very detailed update, he did have this to say.

"They're in development. And we've got writers, and we're working on both those stories. But nothing that would be an exciting update."

Portal and Half-Life movies were first hinted at during the DICE 2013 conference. It was at this time that J.J. Abrams and Valve's Gabe Newell discussed teaming up to create both games and future movie adaptations. The two titles mentioned here are the most notable projects that came out of that previous discussion three years ago. But since that time, there has been no apparent movement on either title.

An interesting side note, Dan Trachtenberg, who makes his directorial debut with 10 Cloverfield Lane, first started making waves in Hollywood with his Portal Fan Film No Escape. But the director has never been connected to or mentioned in terms of directing the big screen version of Portal.

Portal is a 2007 first-person puzzle-platform video game developed by Valve Corporation released in 2007. The game consists of a series of puzzles that must be solved by teleporting the player's character and simple objects using "the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device", a device that can create inter-spatial portals between two flat planes. The main character Chell is challenged by an artificial intelligence named GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System) to complete each puzzle in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center using the portal gun with the promise of receiving cake when all the puzzles are completed. The game's unique physics allows momentum to be retained through portals, requiring creative use of portals to maneuver through the test chambers.

Half-Life is a science fiction first-person shooter video game developed by Valve and released in 1998. Players assume the role of Dr. Gordon Freeman, who must fight his way out of a secret research facility after a teleportation experiment goes disastrously wrong, fighting enemies and solving puzzles. Unlike many other games at the time, Half-Life features no cutscenes; the player has uninterrupted control of Freeman, and the story is told through scripted sequences seen through his eyes. There is no telling when we'll ever see a Half-Life or Portal movie actually arrive at the theater.