(Source: http://blog.metacafe.com)

It’s not enough to simply create a simple videogame in today’s fast-paced multimedia world. To make it big, often times you have to go all the way. Case in point: Blacklight Transmedia, a new production company aimed at generating a story-driven movie, videogame, and comic based in Japan’s feudal samurai era, called Samurai.

Created in the vein of Frank Miller’s stylistic action-filled 300, Samurai is a movie that sounds…familiar. Feudal Japan. Stylistic settings. Samurais fighting for honor. Blahdy-blahdy-blah. But it’s Blacklight’s people and its particular lens that will set it apart. Transmedia’s partners, Zak Kadison, Eric Lieb, Mark Long, and Joanna Alexander form a highly skilled creative team with deep backgrounds in movies, comic books, and videogames. Combined with State Street Pictures and director Jerry O’Flaherty (a long-time art director in the videogame industry who steered the art for Gears of War), their unique blend of skills and tastes will forge an uncommon new property.

Samurai, the property, is in its early days. But there is lots to look at. We’ve revealed the first movie concept trailer and a behind-the-scenes technology clip explaining how the movie is being made. The concept comprises Samurai, the movie, Samurai Origins, the videogame, and Samurai Destiny, the graphic novel, each of which tells a different standalone variation of the “Samurai” story. Blacklight’s partners know all good stories are rooted in engaging consumers’ emotions, and Samurai will tell the story of three central characters living and fighting to stay alive in feudal, civil war Japan. Samurai’s story follows a disgraced Ronin, a female Ninja, and an orphaned English teenager who must follow their destinies of bringing unity to the country by avenging their loved ones killed by a power-hungry Samurai Lord and his warriors who are scourging the land.

“Each piece of the transmedia ‘puzzle’ is designed to be a compelling, stand alone experience,” said producer Eric Lieb, former director of development at Fox Atomic. “That is to say, the videogame tells a contained story that is fun to play, the graphic novel is a compelling read backed by gorgeous art, etc. It’s not enough that each part of the franchise ties together narratively or exists in the same ‘universe’–each must play to the strengths of that respective medium and provide the viewer/reader/player with the most compelling experience possible.”

After signing a two-year development deal with Imagine Entertainment, Blacklight signed on writer Fernly Phillips (The Number 23) and director Jerry O’Flaherty (Gears of War) for the movie. These early days are all about putting the right people in play, so Translight wouldn’t reveal any actors or other talent it’s talking to, or has signed. It’s such early days that Blacklight is in searching for a movie distributor and a game publisher. Release date? TBD. But Blacklight has signed on a developer, Bedlam Games, known for its work on Scratch: The Ultimate DJ to create a “stylish action-adventure game,” as Lieb puts it. We’re guessing Devil May Cry’s version of “stylish” mixed with “300″ aesthetics.

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