PC Gamer has quotes from an interview with Gabe Newell where the Valve managing director reveals his company's interest in being the creators of a Half-Life movie instead of letting Hollywood adapt their shooter. They also have another story from the conversation where Gabe explains they were considering a fairy-themed action game at one point before settling on Left 4 Dead as a project, somewhat mercilessly ripping into what a bad idea the dropped concept was. Here are Gabe's thoughts on the Half-Life movie:

Where we got into this direction was after Half-Life 1 had shipped. There was a whole bunch of meetings with people from Hollywood. Directors down there wanted to make a Half-Life movie and stuff, so they’d bring in a writer or some talent agency would bring in writers, and they would pitch us on their story. And their stories were just so bad. I mean, brutally, the worst. Not understanding what made the game a good game, or what made the property an interesting thing for people to be a fan of.

That’s when we started saying ‘Wow, the best thing we could ever do is to just not do this as a movie, or we’d have to make it ourselves.’ And I was like, ‘Make it ourselves? Well that’s impossible.’ But the Team Fortress 2 thing, the Meet The Team shorts, is us trying to explore that.