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Report: Brash cashing out today

By Tor Thorsen, GameSpotPosted Nov 14, 2008 11:55 am PT

Variety reports that once-upstart developer is shuttering its doors less than 18 months after raising $400 million.

How do you go from $400 million to flat broke in 17 months? Ask the founders of Brash Entertainment, the upstart game developer cofounded by Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull in March 2007. One of the executive producers for such cinematic phenomena as 300 and The Dark Knight, Tull wasted little time in getting funding, announcing just two months later that he had raised the above sum.

Brash's game plan was to use the lucre in its coffers and its film-industry leverage to crank out a series of movie-based games. And crank it did, releasing titles based on Space Chimps, Jumper, and Alvin and the Chimpmunks--to poor sales and even less critical acclaim. As a result, Brash's boardroom started hemorrhaging executives, with president and cofounder Nicholas Longano bolting this past May and Tull himself leaving last month. Once Tull left the building, the financial backers who had pledged the $400 million turned off the spigot, leaving Brash strapped.

One week ago, Variety reported that Brash was slashing more than 20 positions from its small operations and was looking to sell off its library of film game licenses to the highest bidder. Now, the Hollywood trade magazine is reporting that the company is shutting down entirely as of today. Brash's Web site remains active but hasn't been updated since July.

Requests for confirmation of the closure had not been returned as of press time, most likely due to layoffs in Brash's PR department. GameSpot confirmed that as of last week, Brash's vice president of corporate communications, Tiffany Spencer, was no longer at her position.

If true, Brash's closure would leave a number of projects in limbo. The company had been working on games based on the television show Prison Break and the films 300, Saw, and Clash of the Titans. The publisher had also inked a deal with Lair developer Factor 5 to develop an unnamed game--Superman, according to Variety--for release in 2010.

26 Comments

  • MadGamer132

    Posted Aug 12, 2009 9:19 am PT

    KABOOM!

  • boyd803

    Posted Jun 30, 2009 12:15 am PT

    personally, i think this is a bad investment on Brash
    according to the market, movie-based games and movie-inspired games didnt sell well, they only came out with generic executions, nothing interesting. well theres few exeptions, like oo7 and csi, but, just think about it, it is hard task to climb to the top by making movie-based games, so it is not a good idea to invest movie-based games productions, unless you have amazing game desingers on your hands, otherwise most of the case it comes to a total failure

  • Fareru

    Posted Nov 17, 2008 11:27 am PT

    So long as the terribleness of Saw can't bother me outside of the DVD world and so long as there isn't going to be another Superman game, which is also always a bad idea.

  • Sergsky

    Posted Nov 17, 2008 8:54 am PT

    None of the released games are based on blockbuster movies, they even sold poorly at the theater!

  • tudyniuz

    Posted Nov 16, 2008 12:42 pm PT

    guess this is good news...

  • ZEPH1ZEN

    Posted Nov 16, 2008 11:51 am PT

    This is actually brilliant news. Sorry to wish bad fortunes on anyone, but this is completely deserved. For ages people have hated crappy Movie tie ins form companies looking for some quick cash. This is a prime example to developers on what happens should you think about repeatedly releasing rubbish movie tie-ins. Brash entertainment completely deserve this, thinking that they can build a big gaming name on rubbish movie tie-ins only bought by little kids who dont know any better, and die-hard fans of the films. If this happened more often, we could see one of 2 things : A gaming world without movie tie-ins, or a reduced amount of movie tie-ins, leaving only GOOD ones. Unfortunately, both are godamn unlikely...

  • DataDream

    Posted Nov 16, 2008 10:40 am PT

    Well a Clash of The Titans game is LONG overdue and could be cool - hopefully a company with some game development skills instead of movie production skills picks that one up.

    We all know how poorly the games to movies and vice versa translations have been - so is it really any surprise that a company that founded itself on that niche area of gaming would do poorly?

    Yeah maybe they should have just focussed on making good games instead of games based on movies.

  • flameducky

    Posted Nov 16, 2008 9:54 am PT

    I was hoping for that Saw game. besides, $400 million doesn't just go up in smoke.
    (Or does it?)

  • otanikun

    Posted Nov 16, 2008 8:00 am PT

    Knew that wasn't gonna last; so who's gonna do the Saw game now?

  • just_nonplussed

    Posted Nov 15, 2008 11:11 am PT

    'But I think the main reason it worked was because of the multiplayer.'
    -it worked because it was developed by rare

  • GeigerdolylWodd

    Posted Nov 15, 2008 3:35 am PT

    Well you've got to figure some of that money...hell most of that money probably went to production expenses including but not limited to the actors they hired to do the voice work. I'm not sure if they had a hand at all in making those movies but who knows the money to make those movies had to come from somewhere. Either way I find it hard to believe it all went into making games.

    Yeah Vambran, Goldeneye was a classic. But I think the main reason it worked was because of the multiplayer. Sure there were additional objectives for the single player as you raised the difficulty but you can't deny the addictiveness of the multiplayer. Heck some of the same maps were used in Perfect Dark.

  • majere613

    Posted Nov 15, 2008 3:35 am PT

    They probably never actually had the 400M, it was just capital that had been agreed with their backers which they were drawing on as they needed it, hence once those backers pull out the piggybank starves. Have to agree with others, anyone who thinks IPs like Space Chimps and the Chipmunks are going to drive them to big profits is living in cloud cuckoo land.
    They might have had more luck if they'd got Spongebob, for some reason that guy seems to be in about 30 games....

  • hatieshorrer

    Posted Nov 15, 2008 12:25 am PT

    Wow if you look at the movie games they chose to make and, compare that with the movie licenses of movie games they could have made; you can see just how poor they were in there choices. I would have hashed out a God of War like brawler based on the movie 300 as my first project.

  • dr_jashugan

    Posted Nov 15, 2008 12:16 am PT

    So, where did ALL that money go?

  • Birdman1333

    Posted Nov 14, 2008 3:42 pm PT

    I wonder how many million they really spent.

  • star77241

    Posted Nov 14, 2008 3:11 pm PT

    They were going to make Saw into a game. Damn. I hope somebody else picks it up.

  • strangethoughts

    Posted Nov 14, 2008 2:37 pm PT

    good riddance

  • Media_Mind

    Posted Nov 14, 2008 2:31 pm PT

    ...

  • redskinStu

    Posted Nov 14, 2008 2:04 pm PT

    Looks like another "flash in the pan" flirtation with video games ended in failure.
    Lots of people in movies and music think they can corner the video game market.
    They don't understand the video game industry. But in all fairness, a lot of people at companies like EA, Microsoft and Ubiooft don't understand the video game industry either...

  • Vambran

    Posted Nov 14, 2008 1:47 pm PT

    The only time a movie tie in game was any good was golden eye 64 for the N64.

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