Let's be clear: There won't be a Half-Life film, but if there were, Valve Writer Marc Laidlaw wants Guillermo del Toro to direct it.
"If Paul Verhoeven returned to science fiction films, he would do something insane with Half-Life… maybe something objectionably insane, but at least not, " Laidlaw said in an interview with New Rising Media (via OXM). "Peter Jackson has proved himself an amazing purveyor of faithful adaptions."
But neither of them would be able to portray the horror of the popular game the same way that del Toro would, according to Laidlaw, and he should know since he wrote the games.
"Guillermo del Toro has the horror vibe that I think a lot of people miss out on when thinking about a Half-Life movie. Half-Life is essentially horror after all. The science in it barely passes as hand-waving, but when a headcrab jumps at your head, it's a precisely engineered jolt. There are probably a lot of good potential directors, but I think most of them are busy pursuing their own visions."
Back in 2010 Gabe Newell told PC Gamer that there won't be a film adaption.
"There was a whole bunch of meetings with people from Hollywood, " said Newell. "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, or what made the property an interesting thing for people to be a fan of."