Look, we all know the history of video game movies and TV shows. Until VERY recently, as in the last five years, things were pretty bad. It’s only been due to actual quality control and care for the video game franchises themselves that things have finally turned around. Even still, we have to be careful about each and every single game adaptation we put out there because you never know which one might be a dud in the future. One such “potential dud” might be in the filming phase right now, as the Watch Dogs movie has been confirmed to be in production! Yes, for real!
This came via Ubisoft, who noted on Twitter that the first day of filming had truly begun. You can see the “card” for the film starting below:
So, yeah, this is happening, and it’s confusing to say the least. The Watch Dogs film was first announced about a decade ago when the franchise was still at least somewhat hyped. Do recall that the first game in the series by Ubisoft was incredibly anticipated due to the epic “vertical slice” that had been shown at E3 during its reveal. The idea of using technology to do certain things and weave the world to your whims was enticing, especially to those who saw this as a different kind of game than what we had at the time.
Sadly, the game, and the ones that followed, didn’t live up to that hype and played more like a basic shooter than anything else. Ubisoft did its best to try and diversify the gameplay elements with its 2020 entry, allowing you to basically recruit the world to take on a tech threat, but it never panned out.
Bringing this back to the movie, the plot itself is currently under wraps, and we only know some small things about the game overall. That’s usually a problem, but Ubisoft and the team behind the film may be trying to keep things low-profile so that they can surprise people with what they have in store.
The irony is that, if done properly, they could use the film to finally fulfill the promise of the series. It wouldn’t be hard for them to embrace the “tech side” of things and create a unique narrative around using technology to change the world in a hacking sort of way.
Only time will tell if this works out or if it is added to the list of video game films that should’ve never been made.
