The Assassin's Creed franchise has been one of the major tent-pole series in the gaming industry for the past five years. Hitting its stride with Assassin's Creed 2, and its subsequent sequels, by telling the story of Ezio Auditore as well as fleshing out the original protagonist Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, Ubisoft's gaming gem is still picking up steam - heading for a major payoff with the upcoming Assassin's Creed 3 (set in the American Revolution).
Last year, Ubisoft invested resources to launch Ubisoft Motion Pictures in an attempt to bring some of the company's games to film, television and other digital projects. According to a report, Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class and Prometheus) has been cast as the lead in Ubisoft Motion Picture's future Assassin's Creed film.
Jean-Julien Baronnet, CEO of Paris-based Ubisoft Motion Pictures, told Variety that Michael Fassbender was at the top of their list to be cast in the yet-unnamed role.
"Michael Fassbender was our first choice" to play the franchise's iconic hooded hero. Michael is an extremely smart, talented, versatile and committed actor."
Ubisoft executives, who originally tried to negotiate a deal with Sony to bring the gaming franchise to the big screen, are now developing the film independently in an attempt to maintain a firmer grasp on creative control. Ubisoft Motion Pictures could still go to Sony to distribute the project - considering they already registered many Assassin's Creed movie domains - but Baronnett said those talks will not take place until after a director and writer have been named.
"We're open to re-discuss with the key studios once the production package is finalized. Whatever the financial model, Ubisoft Motion Pictures will limit its risk investment."
The main question for fans of the games is: who exactly will Fassbender play? Baronnet claims that he'll play the franchise's iconic hooded hero, but considering that Assassin's Creed 3 will be released before this film ever sees the light of day, that gives UMP three different "iconic hooded heroes" to choose from Altaïr, Ezio, or Connor, not to mention Desmond - who represents the core narrative through-line for all three characters.
Fassbender is extremely versatile, though if the film follows the story of the games on a chronological path, it's hard to buy into the actor portraying Altair or Desmond (forget about Ezio) considering the apparent age differences, but the story could be tweaked. Considering that UMP is retaining much of the creative control of the film, instead of Sony, hopefully they will do justice to their own character - i.e the entire point of the studio developing the UMP brand.
Ranters, do you like the choice of Michael Fassbender playing someone in an Assassin's Creed film? Should the film follow the games very closely?
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Source: Variety