Tarantino to direct Half-Life movie?

What we heard: When rumors first surfaced about Peter Jackson directing the Halo movie, many dismissed it as a fantasy cooked up by daydreaming nerds. But when it turned out that the King Kong director had agreed to executive-produce Halo, many were flabbergasted that such a perfect pairing could actually happen.

It was the Halo-Jackson news that made it hard to throw this week's bit of scuttlebutt straight into the crazy pile. While making preliminary plans for their annual sojourn into the deafening neon inferno that is E3, GameSpot editors spoke with a person who has many contacts within the Los Angeles film industry. The person in question said that the hot game-movie crossover project du jour was Half-Life, Valve Software's groundbreaking shooter.

While news of a Half-Life film would be hot by itself, what the film insider said next was more scorching than a habanero enema. He/she said that Pulp Fiction director Quentin Tarantino had been hounding Valve executives to bring the game to the big screen, and that he was currently in negotiations with the developer. Most film fans were under the impression the director was in preproduction of his long-in-the-making World War II epic, Inglorious Bastards.

Alas, the image of Gordon Freeman smacking headcrabs to the tune of "Stuck in the Middle With You" was shattered by Doug Lombardi, Valve's director of marketing. After joking that Tarantino was in his office playing Counter-Strike: Source, he set the record straight. "As much as we'd love to meet with him, we've never been contacted by Mr. Tarantino nor 'his people,'" said Lombardi. "We've had many conversations with folks in Hollywood, but have no commitments for an HL movie at this time."

Bogus or not bogus?: Bogus.