Lost Mark Hamill Movie Is Finally Being Released
Virtually Heroes, which features Mark Hamill, is finally receiving a digital release nearly 10 years after it debuted at the Sundance Film Festival.
Unless you attended the Sundance Film Festival 2013 screening of the video game-inspired film Virtually Heroes, then you’ve never seen this lost Mark Hamill film. Fortunately, you’re going to get your opportunity soon. IGN reported that the never-released film will be released digitally by Screen Media on January 17.
The film Virtually Heroes was directed by G.J. Echternkamp and produced by Roger Corman with a cast that includes Mark Hamill, Robert Baker, Brent Chase, and Katie Savoy. Virtually Heroes follows two characters in a Call of Duty-like video game who become tired of constantly battling and going through the levels. They meet a sage-like monk (Hamill) who shows them the cheat codes to live life.
Casting Mark Hamill in an obvious Jedi homage is definitely a good move, so here’s hoping that the film will be good too. There might have been a reason that it was stowed away for a decade. Then again, maybe there wasn’t a good reason for locking it away and the film turns out to be great.
Since 2013, Mark Hamill has been plenty busy, he even reprised his role as actual Jedi Luke Skywalker multiple times, albeit in some very divisive films. We first saw Hamill make his grand return as Luke at the tail end of Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, but would then have a much larger role in Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi, which was undoubtedly the most contentious entry to the sequel trilogy. Finally, he also played Luke in Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker, which pretty much landed with a thud (critically, not financially).
Surprisingly, Disney wasn’t done bringing back Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, and he appeared as a younger post-Return of the Jedi Luke in shows like The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. Thanks to the magic of visual effects and deepfake technology, we basically got a whole episode of Master Luke teaching Grogu the Jedi way. While his role in Virtually Heroes isn’t quite Luke, it’s always cool to see more of Hamill in wise sage mode.
While Mark Hamill has had some major live-action roles thanks to his return to Star Wars, he’s mostly been contributing to his thriving voice-acting career. Most notably, he continues to reprise his role as the Joker in numerous animated DC projects and video games. Hamill continues to be one of the best iterations of the Joker, and hopefully, we can look forward to him playing the character in many more future DC projects.
As for Mark Hamill’s recent work, he voiced the role of Merv Pumpkinhead in Netflix’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, which has been renewed for a second season. Hamill also voices the role of Art Rosenbaum in Amazon’s adaption of Invincible, which also has a second season on the way. We can likely expect to see Hamill pop up in both new seasons of these shows when they’re released.
We can also look forward to a few more Mark Hamill projects this year. In 2023, we should see Hamill in the movie The Machine and in the TV series The Fall of the House of Usher. In the meantime, you can see him in Virtually Heroes when it’s released on January 17.
