‘Dead Rising’ Digital Feature from Legendary to Release on Sony’s Crackle Platform
A Dead Rising digital feature is being produced by Legendary Pictures Digital Media division on Sony’s Crackle service. The Digital Media division of Legendary Pictures was founded with the hiring of Bruce Rosenblum, who has overseen Legendenary’s expansion into television and the digital market place. Dead Rising will be the first product out of the new division since its founding in 2011.
Legendary Pictures is no stranger to video games, though the history is a troubled one. In 2009, Legendary hired Kathy Vrabeck to head the digital efforts of the production company. Vrabeck was the president of EA’s casual game division and of Activision. Two years later, she left her position as Legendary decided that only after two releases of mobile games, they would focus their efforts on film and a new comic book and television production effort.
3 years later, those efforts are being revealed in the first official project, Dead Rising. According to Variety, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, the franchise producer of the Transformers franchise has signed on as the executive producer, and Tim Carer will write and produce with Tomas Harlon under their Contradiction Films company. No director has been announced as of yet.
Contradiction has several video game credits under their belt, most notably the Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn series as well as the Mortal Kombat: Legacy, and Street Fighter series.
Sony’s Crackle is a free service which started as Grouper, and was purchased by Sony in 2006. It is a free service which is funded by commercials from sponsors and features original programing including Cleaners and Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. “Rising Dead” will be the first partnership between Legendary Digital Media and Crackle.
The Dead Rising movie will be released on SVOD, DVD, VOD, and TV after the deal with Crackle runs its course.
“Dead Rising has a built-in fan base and rich characters and plotlines that are ideal for digital storytelling and on target for Legendary’s brand,” said Legendary Digital chief Tom Lesinski. “Crackle and Content are adept at distributing cutting-edge digital content and we look forward to delivering a highly engaging and cool series for a global audience.”
The irony of the Sony distribution of Dead Rising through its Crackle platform is that Dead Rising and Dead Rising 3 are exclusive to the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Xbox One respectively, with only Dead Rising 2 making an appearance on the Sony PlayStation 3.
Dead Rising as a video game is published by Capcom, who is currently looking for a buyer, according to a related story from The Inquisitr To date, the series has sold 6.5 million copies.
