•• Legendary Entertainment and Sony-owned Crackle have set Jesse Metcalfe (Desperate Housewives, Dallas), Meghan Ory (Once Upon a Time), Virginia Madsen (Sideways), and Dennis Haysbert (Men, Women & Children) to star in zombie chopper Dead Rising: Watchtower, the first project out of Legendary’s Digital Media division.

Leprechaun: Origins helmer and VFX veteran Zach Lipovsky is directing Dead Rising from a script by Tim Carter, based on the bestselling Capcom franchise that’s spawned two sequels and sold 7.6 million copies worldwide to date. As in the vidgame, Dead Rising: Watchtower is set during a zombie apocalypse. When a mandatory government vaccine fails, a group of survivors must evade infection while hunting down the root of the epidemic, which leads back to a government conspiracy.

Filming is set to begin tomorrow in Vancouver with Carter and Tomas Harlan producing for their Contradiction Films banner. Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura is aboard as executive producer. Contradiction Films’ prior digital releases include Mortal Kombat: Legacy, another live-action action video game adaptation that scored big with online audiences. That web series went viral when it debuted online on Machinima.com’s YouTube channel, paving the way for similar video game spin-offs to take advantage of the gamer-centric digital space.

Dead Rising is set to debut as a 90-minute feature in the U.S. on Sony’s digital platform Crackle, followed by SVOD, DVD, VOD, and TV. Content Media, which released the popular Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn film and Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist series digitally, has international rights to Dead Rising and will release it in both feature-length and episodic form.

•• The photo gallery was updated with new pictures of Virginia Madsen attending “We Are Limitless” 2nd Annual Celebrity Poker Tournament at Hyperion Public Restaurant on September 23, 2014 in Los Angeles.

“We Are Limitless” has provided quality education and amenities to more than 30 children and students over the past two years, but we need your help in our next chapter! You can make a donation and help “We Are Limitless” begin building a safe haven for 247 orphans and victims of sexual violence. This center will provide a refuge to victims of the two decades war that has raged in Congo and continues to leave women and children displaced.

 

Elaine Madsen, an Emmy-winning poet, producer and playwright, and her daughter, the actor Virginia Madsen, will be at opening night of the High Falls Film Festival to discuss their new film, I Know a Woman Like That. The 12th annual festival, honoring women in filmmaking, runs Oct. 23 through Oct. 26, with showings at The Little Theatre and the Dryden Theatre at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. Tickets for the event go on sale at 3 p.m. Friday at highfallsfilmfestival.com.

Directed by Elaine Madsen and produced by Virginia Madsen, who’s best known for her role in the film Sideways, I Know a Woman Like That is a documentary on women who continue to do important work into their 80s and 90s. It shows at 6:15 Oct. 23 at The Little Theater 1. Both Madsens, as is the case with other filmmakers throughout the four-day festival, will be part of a Q&A session following the showing of their film.

New to this year’s festival is a program of children’s shorts. An all-access pass is $125 plus a service charge, which allows access to all films, the opening and closing-night parties and the VIP Festival Lounge. A film-only pass is $85, plus service charges. Individual film showings are $12 plus service charge, except Opening and Closing Night films, which are $20 plus a service charge (there is a $2 discount for students and seniors 65 and over, with an ID required at the door). The Opening and Closing Night Parties are $25 plus the service charge.

Tickets are also available at the door if the event is not sold out. Please check the festival web site for the schedule.