Rainmaker Entertainment is banking on popular video game brands to help it break through in the highly competitive feature animation space.

Ratchet & Clank, from the Vancouver-based CGI animation and production studio and Los Angeles-based Blockade Entertainment, is based on the hit video game franchise of the same name published by Sony Entertainment America and developed by Insomniac Games. The film, which is being distributed by Gramercy Pictures in the U.S. and Universal in Canada, opens wide across North America on April 29, just two weeks after the release of the newest Ratchet & Clank video game for Playstation. Ratchet & Clank will also open internationally over the course of the next two months.

“There’s been a big coordinated effort between Playstation globally and all of our international distribution partners to create synergy, that co-branding and co-marketing – using the game and the film to capture and engage an audience and cut through a very crowded marketplace,” said Michael Hefferon, president and chief creative officer of Rainmaker in an interview with Playback Daily.

While the average filmgoer may not recognize the Rainmaker brand, said Hefferon, Ratchet & Clank is an established franchise – one that he hopes will draw both fans and families to the theatre.

Rainmaker is ultimately hoping to create an experience that will inspire continued engagement between all Ratchet & Clank properties. The company partnered with Sony and Insomniac to ensure that the film and video game had the same look and feel – all in an effort to ensure fans have a seamless experience.

This “engagement factor” is key to Hefferon’s strategy for Rainmaker going forward. For its next project, the company has once again partnered with Blockade and Sony Computer Entertainment America to develop the Playstation video game Sly Cooper into a feature.

“Everything that we’re looking to do really is a 360 approach of engagement,” he said. “It’s not just [that Sly Cooper is] a franchise that people know, it’s also a way an audience can engage and become vested in the content.”

As for the upcoming release of Ratchet & Clank, Hefferon said he thinks the film has the potential to outperform other independent animated films like 2014 Canadian copro The Nut Job, which grossed $64 million in North America without the help of an established fanbase.

Ratchet & Clank is executive produced by Hefferon and produced by Rainmaker’s Kim Dent Wilder and Blockade’s Brad Foxhoven and David Wohl. It is is directed by Canadian Kevin Munroe and co-directed by Jericca Cleland. The screenplay was written by T.J. Fixman, Munroe and Gerry Swallow.