Legendary Pictures has tapped EA and Activision vet Kathy Vrabeck to head up its new interactive entertainment arm (via Variety). Vrabeck joins Legendary after a few months of speculation about the movie studio’s gaming aspirations; she left her post as head of EA’s casual games division in November 2008. Prior to EA, she served as president of publishing at Activision (NSDQ: ATVI).

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Legendary currently has two game-related properties in the queue: a long-delayed World of Warcraft film, and one based on first-person-shooter Gears of War. Given Vrabeck’s more than ten years worth of industry experience and connections, it’s clear that we’ll see more hybrid game/film and possibly TV show properties coming down the pike. (Activision, for example, has publicly expressed its interest in porting its best-selling Guitar Hero franchise to movies and TV—and Vrabeck served as president of publishing at the company for six years before joining EA). 

Even with Vrabeck at the helm, the new unit could have a tough time turning a profit from movie or TV-related gaming content; the LAT reports that the five most recently released movie-based games haven’t sold as well as the industry expected. And CEO Thomas Tull previously invested in now-shuttered game studio Brash Entertainment, (which was supposed to bridge the gap between Hollywood and video games, too).