Kingsley Signs on to BloodRayne

Ben Kingsley will play evil vampire king Kagan, joining Terminator 3 actress Kristanna Loken in the big-screen adaptation of Majesco's game BloodRayne,

The film – which opens production on location in Romania next month – will be helmed and funded by Uwe Boll, who has raised $47 million through the German film fund Boll KG 4. He joins

Set in 18th century Romania, the plot follows Rayne (Loken) , who has a human mother and a vampire father who shunned her. She is struggling with her existence, but has managed to develop a rather serious chip on her shoulder when it comes to dad. Teaming with two vampire hunters, she sets out to destroy Kagan before he manipulates the earth into darkness, allowing the vampires forever.

If it sounds a little like the story behind Blade, well, you're probably just thinking too much. For those who can't wait for the movie, which doesn't yet have a release date, you can rest easy knowing that BloodRayne2 hits retail stores in October.

Video games are a hit and miss property when the properties are turned into films. The interactivity that makes action games so great can also be the reason that they fall short in the storytelling medium. For what it's worth, Boll seems to have a videogame/movie fetish, having directed House of the Dead, based on the Sega videogame, and Alone in the Dark, starring Christian Slater, Tara Reid and Stephen Dorff, based on the Atari game.