Fans of the “Assassin’s Creed” series have been commenting for a long time now that the franchise has a lot of cinematic potential, and that it would make a lot of sense for Ubisoft to consider a movie adaptation. And recently, we’ve been getting reports that things are headed in that direction, as the studio has greenlit a project for an “Assassin’s Creed” film and are set to start its production soon. The actual release date of the film is scheduled for December 2016 at the moment, according to reports.
Among the various rumors and reports that we’ve been getting about the upcoming film adaptation, we’ve heard that Michael Fassbender is apparently involved. We know him from “X-Men: The First Class” and “Days of the Future Past”, where he portrayed a younger version of Magneto. In addition, he was highly praised for his role in “12 Years a Slave”.
In the “Assassin’s Creed” film, he’s set to play the role of present-day Desmond, as well as Ezio Auditore. Fassbender is also tasked with the film’s production – although he’s not the only one on board for that – so we’ll likely see him contributing a lot.
We also got reports that Marion Cotillard will be playing in the new film, although we don’t know her exact role yet. We’ve seen Cotillard in “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Inception”, both highly acclaimed productions which also got her a lot of attention in the media. It won’t be the first time the actress has collaborated with Michael Fassbender either, as the two have been working together on “Macbeth”.
Now that we know the movie is happening, all we can hope for is that Ubisoft handle it properly and don’t mess up the production. Film adaptations of games have traditionally been a hit and miss type of thing, with very few managing to get the kind of critical acclaim that they deserve. “Hitman” was rather unsuccessful because it missed the point of the main character (according to many fans and critics), “Tomb Raider”, on the other hand, is an example of a more successful adaptation.
And then we have people like Uwe Boll who are practically known for ruining any game name they touch – to the point where some game developers have joked about the possibility of selling their rights to the notorious director. Hopefully, Ubisoft will realize the important aspects of what makes “Assassin’s Creed” a good story, and focus on those. The film can definitely include a lot of action and be received well, as that’s what the game is about to a large extent, but it should also tell a good story about the Assassins, as there is a huge potential to dig deep into that.