JJ Abrams talks Half-Life, Portal, Who Framed Roger Rabbit sequel and lens flare

For a man who’s currently balancing the Star Wars, Star Trek and Colverfield franchises, JJ Abrams seems to be constantly looking forward – and back – for new ideas.

Some of you might remember quite some time ago Abrams’ Bad Robot Production company and Gabe Newell’s gaming company Valve were working on bringing Half-Life and Portal to the big screen.

And, in fairness, there hasn’t been much more on them in recent years. Until now.

Abrams wants us to know that it will happen: “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.”

One that got away for Abrams, however, was the sequel to who Framed Roger Rabbit. Before the death of original movie star Bob Hoskins, Roger was almost brought back by several filmmakers, one of whom was Abrams: “When I was 16 Kathleen Kennedy called Matt Reeves and I, to ask if we would repair these 8mm films Steven [Spielberg] had made when he was a kid,” Abrams said.

“It happened because we were in a film festival and she had read about us in the LA Times. So, of course, we said yes and did the repairs. Years later I got to meet Steven. I went into a meeting…actually, it was for a Roger Rabbit sequel. It was a whole thing. I actually have some storyboards for a Roger Rabbit short. Honestly, we never really got to that phase [where it got serious]. We were writing an outline, but it honestly went away before it was anything. This was a long time ago. Zemeckis probably would’ve been a producer on it.”

We’ll not lie, the idea of a Roger Rabbit sequel is something we’ve always wanted but, with Hopkins’ death, we reckon the time has passed. Which is a real shame.

Oh and, in related news, Abrams has revealed that his days of lens flair may well be over, due to his wife scolding him and telling him to stop: “Katie’s told me to stop a lot of things. But lens flares, I was like ‘OK. I’ll stop with it.’ There was one scene in Star Trek into Darkness where you literally couldn’t see what was going on, and it was a very important, emotional scene. Alice Eve, the actress, was somewhere behind this crazy lens flare glaring, and Katie looked at me and said, ‘OK, I think this is it.’”

We know his flare was a constant source of amusement and ridicule from movie fans, so it looks like those days are now over.

Is it wrong we miss the flare already?

Source: IGN and Slashfilm