J.J. Abrams loves unexpected twists in his creative projects, buts now he’s shared one from his own life. Though there has been talk of a sequel to Robert Zemeckis’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit? basically since it debuted in 1988, nothing has yet come of it. Though at the time, it would appear that Abrams wanted to throw his hat into the ring to continue the story.

In a Nerdist podcast alongside director Dan Trachtenberg to promote 10 Cloverfield Lane, Abrams was asked about Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and whether he considers Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy a mentor. That triggered a great story from him about the first time he got a call from Kennedy to restore some 8mm film for Steven Spielberg, who he wanted to pitch a Roger Rabbit sequel to. Abrams said (h/t to /Film for the transcription):

“I’ve told this story before, but when I was 16 Kathleen Kennedy called Matt Reeves (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) and I, to ask if we would repair these 8mm films Steven had made when he was a kid. 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. This was 1989.”

Though Abrams says he doesn’t remember the specifics of the outline, it is cool to consider that 30 years later, he was getting a call from Kennedy to direct a new Star Wars movie.

In more contemporary news, IGN reports that Abrams has confirmed that movies based on the games Portal and Half-Life are still in the works, saying,

“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.”

We’ll keep you updated on any news as we have it, and in the meantime, what do you think Abrams’ Roger Rabbit sequel was probably about?