''Virtually Heroes'' is a 2013 American low-budget

gamer A gamer is a proactive hobbyist who plays interactive games, especially video games, tabletop role-playing games, and skill-based card games, and who plays for usually long periods of time. Some gamers are competitive, meaning they routinely ...

film directed by G.J. Echternkamp and starring Robert Baker and

Mark Hamill Mark Richard Hamill (; born September 25, 1951) is an American actor and writer. He is known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the ''Star Wars'' film series, beginning with the original 1977 film and subsequently winning three Saturn Awards f ...

. Produced by Roger Corman, it made its world premiere at the

2013 Sundance Film Festival The 2013 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 17, 2013, until January 27, 2013, in Park City, Utah, United States, with screenings in Salt Lake City, Utah, Ogden, Utah, and Sundance, Utah. The festival had 1,830 volunteers. Films A r ...

Plot

Two self-aware characters in a

Call of Duty ''Call of Duty'' is a first-person shooter video game Media franchise, franchise published by Activision. Starting out in 2003, it first focused on games set in World War II. Over time, the series has seen games set in the midst of the Cold W ...

-inspired video game battle endless supplies of Vietcong, absurdly powerful level bosses and their own existential crises. With the help of Mark Hamill's Yoda-like monk, they attempt to win the game and get the girl.

Production

''Virtually Heroes'' evolved from Roger Corman's desire to utilize his extensive library of stock footage to create a modern war film. Since the 1970s, Corman produced over 20 war films with Filipino director Cirio H. Santiago. Writers G.J. Echternkamp and Matt Yamashita drew heavily on Corman's library to write their script, developing a video game world to justify the repurposed stock footage. "I thought if I could find a way to use the big battle scenes from all of these pictures and put it together in a new picture and shoot just a short period of time to tie them all together, I could get a big-looking picture for very little money," Corman said in an interview. Because of the shoestring-budget, most of the film had to be block-shot. Most of the takes were done only twice.

Release

''Virtually Heroes'' was Roger Corman's first submission to enter the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

. It remained unavailable for nearly a decade until

Screen Media Screen Media Ventures, LLC. is an American-Canadian distribution company founded in 2001. In 2008, Screen Media selected The Creative Coalition as its exclusive nonprofit partner in launching the Spotlight Initiative. The partnership permits the p ...

announced that it had acquired the film for release on August 19, 2022, and would give the film a limited theatrical and digital release in December 2022, followed by a release on the Crackle Plus platform

Popcornflix Popcornflix LLC is a website and Over-the-top content, over-the-top (OTT) service offering free ad-supported streaming media, streaming video of feature-length movies and webisodes and owned by the Screen Media, Screen Media Ventures subsidiary o ...

Films featured

''Virtually Heroes'' uses footage from the following Corman pictures: * ''Battle Gear'' (1991) * ''Beyond the Call of Duty'' (1992) * ''Eye of the Eagle'' (1987) * ''Eye of the Eagle 2: Inside the Enemy'' (1989) * ''Eye of the Eagle 3: Last Stand at Lang Mei'' (1989) * ''Firehawk'' (1993) * ''Kill Zone'' (1993) * ''Saigon Commandos'' (1988) * ''

When Eagles Strike ''When Eagles Strike'' (released in the Philippines as ''Operation Balikatan'') is a 2003 war action film co-produced and directed by Cirio H. Santiago. The film stars ex-bodybuilder Christian Boeving, Stacy Keach, Davee Youngblood, Nate Adams ...

'' (2003)

References

External links

*
''Virtually Heroes'' Official Website
{{Roger Corman Films about video games 2013 films Films produced by Roger Corman 2010s English-language films