As part of a soon-to-close multi-million dollar deal, Legendary Pictures, the production company behind the recent mega-hit 300, and Warner Bros. are teaming up to enter another arena of production -- video games. According to Variety, Legendary Pictures, led by Thomas Tull and Warner Bros. will team up to produce and distribute a slate of video game titles to be based on as-yet unspecified Warner Bros. films.

The new venture, known as Brash Entertainment, will be funded by private investors currently being courted by Tull and Legendary Pictures co-founder Bert Ellis and will be run by Mitch Davis and Nicholas Longano, former execs. of in-game advertising company Massive. At the moment, its not known if Warner Bros. will also be an investor in the company or simply handle game distribution in North America -- as they already do for companies such as British publisher Eidios. Even if the full extent of the partnership between Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. isn't known at present, according to the article, there is one project they almost certainly intend to tackle -- a next gen game based on 300 for the XBox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii.

Even though the studio has already released a 300 game for the Playstation Portable, now that the film has become such a huge success, it seems the studio would love to see a much higher-profile game to better take advantage of the movie's young male demographic. That makes sense considering the game for the PSP was pretty bad and felt rushed. Now that they have a hit on their hands, I don't blame them for wanting to go back and make a better game. I, for one, look forward to playing it.

Two of the most important stories in movie news this year have been the push for movie downloads and the related focus on portable viewing. Apple came in a bit late with its attention to both trends, but it quickly became the major front runner of interest with its iTunes movie store and its promotion of iPods that play movies. But there are many download services out there and many other portable devices, much of which can play downloaded films.

Sony's PSP is primarily a video game player, but it can also be used as a video player. It used to have its own hard-copy video format, the UMD, but due to poor sales Sony appeared to have killed them in favor of simple MemoryStick movies (UMDs are still made and are supposedly popular in Japan, at a new discounted price). As an alternative, there have been ways to convert DVDs to PSP-capable files and also ways to download movies for viewing on the device, but nothing officially promoted by Sony. Until now. The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that third-party sites are in negotiations to offer downloads for the PSP -- though Sony hasn't yet issued any statements confirming this -- and another site is in the works for direct-to-PSP downloading.

According to the numbers provided by THR, sales of PSPs have been on a downward slope since their debut in early 2005, so making movies more available to the device may be Sony's hope for boosting public demand. Living in a metropolis, I see a good amount of PSPs on the subway, but I see more iPods, and I rarely see anyone watching videos on either machine.

Is portable movie watching something that you are interested in?

I hope you didn't buy that PSP for movie watching only. Sony has officially killed the UMD (Universal Media Disc) format. Sony, who isn't a stranger to failed entertainment formats (Betamax, MiniDisc, soon Blu-Ray) has been losing support for UMD for awhile now. In march, Universal and Paramount stopped releasing its movies on UMD, and Wal-Mart and Best Buy recently decreased their presence in stores. Finally, this week, Target stopped stocking them altogether. In a move that seems almost related, Sony just released a new item called Memory Stick Entertainment Packs, which also contain movies that are playable on the PSP.

I kinda like the idea of a hand-held device for movies, even though most movies don't look that good in such a small display, but I figured the UMD wouldn't last. Too bad mini-DVD players are still too big to bring on the subway. I guess I'll hold out for that next generation of iPods, which are rumored to be horizontal in order to provide a better viewing screen for Apple's upcoming movie downloads.

Though a handful of films - almost all comedies - have sold OK in their PSP-specific releases, the great majority of titles haven't really sold at all. (And, to put this in context, the ones that sell best move only about 100,000 units, which is nothing compared to DVD sales.) As a result, studios are adjusting their release policies, which essentially means that they're both pulling titles (including Goodfellas, which was due from Warner this spring) and generally reducing the number and genre of films that they sell.

In addition to the fact that the PSP hasn't been the blockbuster hit that Sony hoped, the disc format aimed specifically at the unit faces other difficulties as well, primarily the twin facts that PSP discs can't be played in any other players, and that movie can be illegally loaded into PSP memories, thus making legal releases unnecessary. Since a PSP/TV adapter cable is coming out soon, at least some of the problems will be address, so studios aren't (yet) giving up entirely on the format. Still, though, things don't look good, and it's definitely no longer a priority for anyone who isn't a Sony employee.

Cable network Starz! has just announced that they'll partner with Microsoft and Sony to form Vongo, a legal, pay-for-play movie download service. For a $9.99 service fee per month, Vongo users will obtain unlimited access to a rotating 1,000 film library, likely culled from Starz! current catalog. They'll be able to watch those downloads at any time on a PC or portable media device (presumably that means iPods, PSPs, etc), and will be able to download "new releases" (theatrical features will be available for download after a six month window) for $3.99 apiece. Though the service will obviously draw instant comparisons to the iTunes Music Store, which just started selling television shows for $1.99 an episode with a one day window, to VOD services like GreenCine and Movielink, and to traditional models of television-based pay-per-view, Vongo would seem to go beyond old methods of delivery in terms of its breadth of content alone. But that six month window seems terribly wide, doesn't it? Especially considering that, with the backing of Microsoft and Sony, Vongo will undoubtedly be marketed to PSP and Xbox-rocking gamers. Bill Gates is expected to expand on the deal and the concept in his CES keynote this week.

In a new interview with IGN Film Force, Robert Rodriguez talks about a lot of things – his post-Sin City preference for green screen over real sets; the "double feature" he's making with Quentin Tarantino called Grind House; the possibility that he'll direct an episode of The George Lopez Show. But his most out-of-left-field intimation? That the "franchise" begun with his first film, El Mariachi, and extended with the Johnny Depp starrer Once Upon a Time in Mexico, may continue not with another film, but as a video game. "I thought about doing a PSP game that would follow [Johnny Depp's character]," Rodriguez says. "That would be cool, a Once Upon a Time in Mexico video game for the PSP - The Man With No Eyes. He would be a blind gunfighter." Is this the first time a feature shot for less than $10,000 could find new life over ten years later as a video game? If you can come up with another example, I'd like to hear it. [via GreenCine Daily]

Universal Studios has announced it will release six of its movies for the Sony Playstation Portable, including Assault on Precinct 13, The Rundown, and Van Helsing. This move brings them in line with Disney and 20th Century Fox as well as Playstation's corporate parent Sony.

The adoption of one studio's proprietary technology by others is a big testament to how eager movie producers are to reach the Playstation's target demographic of young men with disposable income. It's only because those other studios don't have the hardware and software infrastructure Sony does that there aren't a slew of personal video or audio devices that only play that company's products.