Kathy Vrabeck leading Legendary's charge into video games

When Kathy Vrabeck ankled (one of my favorite Variety “slanguage” terms – meaning that fuzzy grey area between quitting and getting fired) Electronic Arts late last year, it was a shocker. The Activision veteran had only been at the videogame giant a little over a year and was heading its fastest growing and arguably most important division – casual. But she left for “personal reasons” (the oldest excuse in the book when you’re being pushed out) and Sims label head Rod Humble added casual to his internal empire.

It’s perhaps even more of a shocker, however, to see where she’s ending up: Legendary Pictures, the private equity financier behind movies like “The Dark Knight,” “300” and “Watchmen.” According to several sources, Vrabeck is in final negotiations to take a post at Legendary. I’m not sure exactly that her title will be, but it will apparently entail overseeing new business in videogames and broader digital entertainment.

Vrabeck is one of the best known executives in the videogame world, having worked her way up to president of publishing in the brutally competitive corporate culture at Activision before taking her job as a label president at EA. She’s also one of, if not the, most successful women in the videogames business.

Regular Cut Scene readers know one initiative that will certainly be part of Vrabeck’s purview in her new job: As I reported in October, Legendary has been in talks to acquire “Gears of War” developer and Unreal Engine creator Epic Games. My understanding is that those talks have continued, and gotten deeper, though it’s not clear if it will be a full purchase or some kind of partial acquisition and/or partnership. (Legendary is already co-financing the “Gears of War” movie)

It’s well known that Legendary’s chairman Thomas Tull is extremely interested in video games. He was a co-founder of the ill-fated Brash and resigned from the board in the early fall over concerns about the company’s direction and the quality of its products. Despite the Brash debacle, I’ve heard that Tull remains very interested in videogames and wants to give it another try, this time with more control and better partners.

Nonetheless, it’s not exactly clear what Vrabeck’s hiring means. Will she head up some kind of big digital division, including stuff like online content, or focus primarily on games? Will Legendary become a publisher? Or perhaps fund some games and then partner with other publishers? Will Epic be making games for Legendary or operating completely independently? (As one astute reader pointed out, it could include working on projects like "Lost Patrol," which Legendary acquired last summer with the intention of developing for feature film, the Web, and video games simultaneously)

One interesting angle is that Legendary, like most licensors, probably got back the rights to the games in development at Brash based on its properties (or films it is co-financing with Warner Bros.), like “300” and “Clash of the Titans.” Those titles could potentially continue under Vrabeck’s watch.

So yea, still plenty of questions. But hiring a high powered executive like Vrabeck is an undeniable sign that Legendary intends to be a major player in the videogames space.