Assassins Creed Movie series?

chin_grin

Um, not sure to post it here or in Games. But seeing that it's (going to be) a film I may as well chuck it here....unless it gets bumped to games.......eh.

http://www.firstshowing.net/2011/sony-pictures-lands-movie-rights-to-assassins-creed-video-games/

Sony Pictures Lands Movie Rights to 'Assassin's Creed' Video Games
October 20, 2011
Source: Variety
by Ethan Anderton


The subsidiary Screen Gems already has their own video game franchise with Resident Evil still alive and kicking, but now Sony Pictures is ramping up another video game adaptation for the big screen. Variety has word that the studio is closing a deal to adapt the popular Assassin's Creed video game series into a feature film franchise. Other studios had been vying for the property when Ubisoft started shopping it around Hollywood over the past several months, but Sony Pictures came out on top. The timing couldn't be better with the fourth game, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, hitting shelves on November 15th. Read on!

The video game series follows a bartender named Desmond Miles who is captured by a secret corporation called Abstergo Industries and forced to go back in time to various historical periods like the Renaissance and Crusades to relieve the memories of his ancestors, who are all assassins, in order to recover ancient artifacts. The series has built up quite a fanbase since it started in 2007, so there should be plenty of gamers ready for a feature film version. In addition, the high concept story sounds like a perfect story for a summer blockbuster, as long as it fares better than most of the video game adaptation that hit theaters. Excited?

Hmm. I'm not too pushed on video game flicks. I mean they're great when they don't realise that they're cheesy as hell (Mortal Kombat I'm looking at you.........and also Doom. What, I kinda liked Doom!).

I know the storyline of the games and it is interesting, I just think it's already been done with those f*ckin' Dan Brown sh!tpiles. Although saying that I'm still playing through the first (yeah, jumped on the series a bit late but feck it).

What do you think?

D'Agger

I must properly play Assassins Creed but from what I've seen so far it could be very well transferred onto the silver screen.

I agree that previous game movies have been terrible but this has real potential imo

DrumSteve

If they take the story itself somewhat seriously and don't cast taylor lautner this could be good...

Also there were some pretty awesome VG adaptions...(Silent Hill I'm looking at you).

Mickeroo

The story in this is actually crazy enough to be decent on the big screen, I'm pretty sure they'd have to tone down a lot of what makes it so appealing to get it green lit though. I'm not going to hold my breath for a good adaptation.

Fysh

This looks like an opportune moment to remind everyone that the best videogame film made thus far remains Street Fighter 2: The Animated Movie.

As with every other adaptation in the world, the test for whether AC makes a good movie is in how they transition it from an interactive game narrative to a passive film narrative. If they try to put in cutestupid callbacks to the game (eg Silent Hill, Hitman) then it'll probably be a bit rubbish. If they try to focus on telling a good story, it could be pretty decent.

chin_grin

Fysh wrote: »

This looks like an opportune moment to remind everyone that the best videogame film made thus far remains Street Fighter 2: The Animated Movie.

+1. Great soundtrack too.

Yeah, see AC is a great story although I'm hoping that they stick close to the game without it being too obvious (or lackadaisical where script writing is concerned).

Hope they don't cast that Llama fella though. I wonder who would suit as the protagonist?

DrumSteve

chin_grin wrote: »

+1. Great soundtrack too.

Yeah, see AC is a great story although I'm hoping that they stick close to the game without it being too obvious (or lackadaisical where script writing is concerned).

Hope they don't cast that Llama fella though. I wonder who would suit as the protagonist?

Johnny Depp?

Penn

I f*cking love the Assassin's Creed games.... but I don't think they'll work as a movie. TV series or something, hell yes. But the story of Assassin's Creed 2 especially takes place over the course of 23 years.

I dunno.... I really hope it does work, but wouldn't be surprised if it didn't

D'Agger

Penn wrote: »

I f*cking love the Assassin's Creed games.... but I don't think they'll work as a movie. TV series or something, hell yes. But the story of Assassin's Creed 2 especially takes place over the course of 23 years.

I dunno.... I really hope it does work, but wouldn't be surprised if it didn't

Would be cool if they did a Spartacus / Game of Thrones style mini drama with it actually

ziedth

I mentioned it on the thread at the time but did anyone see the Prince of Persia film? I remember watching that and thinking they couldn't have ripped off assassins creed more even if was based in an Animus. Seriously, check it out.

Anyway, I'm a big big fan of the games so i'd be all for it.

Actually Jake Gyllenhaal would make a lead in Assassins Creed.

ziedth

My picks:

Desmond: Michael Fassbender

Altair: David Belle (from District B-13)

Ezio: hard one, I'm not 100% sure to be honest.

Fysh

ziedth wrote: »

I mentioned it on the thread at the time but did anyone see the Prince of Persia film? I remember watching that and thinking they couldn't have ripped off assassins creed more even if was based in an Animus. Seriously, check it out.

Anyway, I'm a big big fan of the games so i'd be all for it.

Prince Of Persia may have stood out to you as a rip off of other things, but to me it primarily stood out as a ****ing terrible film adaptation of a game that, by rights, should've made for an at least reasonably decent action film. (Not to mention that whoever wrote the dialogue in that film deserves to have their testes pounded into mush - "A true Prince of Persia" *wink* *wink*)

nix

This may work well as a film in theory, but tbh, you know they will give it to some scrub who will **** all over it and it will be nothing like the game anyway..

Ive given up getting excited for games to movie films, they never resemble the game much apart from the names of nouns and the story is always made up or a cluster **** of all the games into one.

Theres only one game id like to see done on the big screen by a good director and that's Metal gear solid, it would be actually hard to **** up i predict, then again i would have said the same thing about Resident evil and look what happened to that..

brianregan09

I hope to god they don't **** this up , If done right and they take the source materiel serious !! and not mess around with it there is potential for a franchise i mean they already have action figures and stuff, I'm pretty sure this could make an awesome movie also please not Johnny Depp for this no way

Fassbender is a good shout for Desmond, assuming they use both Ezio and Altair how about the guy that was in the mummy (not Fraser) his name escapes me at this moment

Sad Professor

Another crappy game adaption in progress. Blergh! I thought the first game sucked and couldn't bring myself to finish it. Second one was a big improvement but I lost interest after a few days of play and still haven't finished that either.

Games make very poor source material for films because they tend not to have a story. A plot, yes, but not a story. What's the difference? Well plot is what happens (games have plenty of goings on) but story is what it is about on character, thematic or emotional level. Games don't tend to have a lot of that.

Fysh

Sad Professor wrote: »

Games make very poor source material for films because they tend not to have a story. A plot, yes, but not a story. What's the difference? Well plot is what happens (games have plenty of goings on) but story is what it is about on character, thematic or emotional level. Games don't tend to have a lot of that.

That's an execution problem, not an intrinsic and unsurmountable issue.

The problem is that the type of games generally chosen for film adaptation are poorly matched with the film approaches taken. Games like Silent Hill 2 or Metroid:Fusion or Braid or No More Heroes have easily as much as characterisation as films in broadly similar genres might need - but the problem is that when adapting games, film-makers don't look at what they can translate to film (for the most part, with SF2A a welcome exception) they look at a simplistic interpretation of the material with a simplistic 3-act structure bolted on and several stupid "game shoutouts" to try and appeal to the game audience. And then, sometimes, they even wonder why everyone says "well, that was a terrible film".

It shouldn't be that hard to take a game and turn it into a decent film. I would imagine, however, that there's a lot of focus-grouping and licence management and other nonsense that gets in the way. Hell, look at some of the Half Life 2 fan-films out there like Escape From City 17:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ixFf4ljuCg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lyUNs7eNhs

or Singularity Collapse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVeSA9xkufQ

It's not impossible to take aspects of the game and its appeal and turn them into aspects of the film, but making it work requires an experimental approach, not the safe & generic 3-act structure that most game adaptations seem to have

Kadongy

I find game adaptations work best when they have Milla Jovovich as the lead. This won't work with Assassin's Creed.

Ridley

If they're interested in making a good film and not just a good pile of money (it could happen) then this could be a very worthwhile venture.

Of course, we don't even have the full story in the games yet and I'm skeptical that Hollywood can handle The Truth.

Fishooks12

Depends on a lot of things

Director/studio/actors

Usually these adaptations are made to be cash cows so I'd be surprised if it turns out to be anything more than the Prince of Persia was.

No doubt the premise has potential though and hopefully I'll be surprised because I love the games