It was revealed this morning (via Variety) that Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class, Prometheus) will be starring in, and co-producing via his DMC Film, the now-confirmed Assassin’s Creed movie adaptation. The games’ production company, Ubisoft, will be at the helm, which makes this a very exciting announcement in a realm that has so far failed to impress. Video game movie adaptations are rarely, if ever, phenomenal, but the AC franchise is one of the biggest in Ubisoft’s roster, so you can bet they’re going to make sure the project is up to their creative standards. Ubisoft has proven their ability to create a fantastic, and highly cinematic product over and over with every installment of the Assassin’s Creed games, we can only hope their production savvy will transfer well to the film.
There are no details on where, or more importantly when, the AC movie will take place, but I wouldn’t necessarily put money on any of the settings we’ve already seen. It is by no means beyond the realm of possibility that Fassbender will step into the role of Altair, Ezio, or Connor—it’s probably quite likely—but the world and mythology of Assassin’s Creed spans most of human history. So the film really could take place anywhere, and anywhen.
There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on here besides the excitement of seeing Fassbender take up the role of Assassin on the big screen, like Ubisoft launching their brand new Ubisoft Motion Pictures production company. As recently as last October, Ubisoft was in talks with Sony to create the AC picture, but they decided to found UMP and direct the production themselves to maintain creative control. Sony may still end up as the distributor, but at present it sounds like UMP and Fassbender’s production company DMC Film will be securely at the wheel for this one. The AC movie will be Ubisoft Motion Picture’s first big, big production, so it may be make-or-break for the fledgling venture. I’m rooting for them.
(via Variety, Den of Geek, and ComicBookMovie.com)