With THQ showing Red Faction Armageddon at E3 2010, the company is busy in the emerging transmedia world. On the heels of its announcement to adapt popular third-person, open-world action videogame franchise, Red Faction, into a television movie with the SyFy Network, THQ has cut a deal with Starlight Runner Entertainment, a New York based production company specializing in transmedia storytelling, to further develop Red Faction for extension across all major media platforms including film, television, online, mobile, books and graphic novels.
Transmedia producers Jeff Gomez and Mark Pensavalle will expand the fictional universe mythology and further develop core story elements of Red Faction by applying their proprietary, transmedia development process. As part of this process, Gomez and Pensavalle will develop a backstory that connects the previous videogames in the franchise, as well as an upcoming fourth videogame entry and the recently announced Red Faction television movie. This work lays the foundation for future iterations of the franchise across a variety of touch points.
“We were impressed by Starlight’s demonstrated track record with numerous high profile transmedia projects including Avatar, Halo and Pirates of the Caribbean,” said Danny Bilson, Executive Vice President, THQ Core Games. “In order to fully realize our vision of creating franchises that successfully transcend gaming, we’re tapping the best in the business with Jeff and his team to make our game fiction more robust and consistent across multiple media platforms.”
THQ will hold all rights to Red Faction transmedia projects and plans to work with partners to publish and distribute content outside of the videogame space. Gomez and Pensavalle will work closely with THQ’s Executive Vice President, Danny Bilson, and Director of Fiction Development, Paul DeMeo, on all creative implementations and will continue to consult on storylines and transmedia extensions for upcoming Red Faction projects. Transmedia production is set to kick off immediately.
“Red Faction has cultivated an excited and participatory fanbase over the last decade that is eager to engage and learn more about the Red Faction world, characters, and storylines,” said Jeff Gomez, Transmedia Producer and CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment. “Danny Bilson is a thought-leader in the videogame and entertainment space and a big advocate of transmedia storytelling - we are thrilled to be working with him and his team to create content that will excite the Red Faction community by allowing them to discover the secrets of the Red Faction universe.”
Jeff Gomez and Mark Pensavalle will be credited as Transmedia Producers on the project and are the first producers to claim the credit since it was ratified, with guidance from Gomez, by the Producer’s Guild of America in early April 2010.
Red Faction is a third-person, open-world shooter set on Mars, 50 years after the events of the original Red Faction. Players take on the role of freedom fighter Alec Mason, with the newly re-established Red Faction movement, as they battle for liberation from the oppressive Earth Defense Force (EDF). The third game in the franchise, Red Faction Armageddon, will ship in March 2011.
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