Kane Parsons, the director of the horror film "The Backrooms", once again made Portal fans believe that an adaptation of the cult game could indeed see the light of day. The director posted two photos from Valve headquarters on social media, without any accompanying comments. This was enough to spark a new wave of discussions online: many users decided that Parsons came to the studio to negotiate a Portal movie adaptation.
Such assumptions did not arise out of nowhere. Even during the promotional campaign for "The Backrooms", Parsons told The New York Times and Letterboxd in interviews that he is a big fan of Valve, and the Portal duology had a huge impact on his work. At the time, the director openly called the game adaptation his dream project. Moreover, even before creating the viral web series The Backrooms, he shot an amateur short film based on Portal and published it on his YouTube channel.
Now Parsons has both the creative and commercial weight to realize such an ambitious project. "The Backrooms", made with a budget of about $10 million, grossed over $267 million worldwide, and the director himself became the youngest filmmaker in history whose film debuted at number one at the global box office.