It’s official: Legendary Pictures hired Kathy Vrabeck to head up digital division

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Kathy Vrabeck has been hired to head up games effort, digital division at Legendary Pictures. Credit: Electronic Arts.

It’s been an open secret in Hollywood for months now that Legendary Pictures’ Thomas Tull, producer of ‘The Dark Knight’ and other blockbuster films, has tapped Kathy Vrabeck to head up a new digital division that will focus on, among other things, video games.

Today, Legendary made it official, announcing Vrabeck’s appointment as a crucial step in taking the company’s ‘creative content to the next level of interactivity for both the industry and the consumer,’ according to a statement.

Tull has not detailed his plans for the newly created interactive division, but the film financier has an abiding interest in games. Among his film projects are movies based on Activision Blizzard’s fantasy-themed World of Warcraft game and Epic Games’ Gears of War shooter franchise. A gamer himself, Tull invested in Brash Entertainment, a company headed by Massive Entertainment founder Mitch Davis. Brash burst on the scene in 2007 promising to reinvent Hollywood’s relationship with video games only to disintegrate months later amid a flurry of lawsuits.

Unlike Davis, who was a relative newcomer to the games business, Vrabeck has more than a decade of industry experience under her belt as head of publishing at Activision and, most recently, president of Electronic Art’s casual games division. She is also among a handful of high-profile female executives in an industry that has been dominated by men.

‘The opportunity to combine Legendary’s brand, loyal consumer following and talented creative partnerships with the fastest growing segments of digital entertainment is incredibly exciting,’ Vrabeck said in a statement.

-- Alex Pham