News of the Assassin's Creed movie has evoked almost universal skepticism, as well as more than a few articles pointing out the less than stellar track record of video games films in the past two decades (Super Mario Bros. movie anyone?) However Ubisoft Motion Pictures CEO Jean Julien Baronnet says it's going to be different with Assassin's Creed, as he's figured out the formula to a more successful movie adaption. Per French film magazine Premiere, translated by Den of Geek, he lays out his plans for achieving success where so many others have failed, citing their studio independence from any big-name film publishers, choosing stellar directing talent, and involving the actors (like the movie's lead, Michael Fassbender) in the script process. Says Baronnet:
"We told [Fassbender] that we were going to build the project together, that we have an enormous brand and we want to make a film modeled on features like Batman Begins or Blade Runner. That's what we're aiming for. We promised him that he could work with the scriptwriters, that we were going to bring him into all the key creative choices."
He reiterates that their studio will have control over key aspects of the story development, saying that a major flaw of video game movies in the past is that they were made by people who did not understand video games. He goes on to say that they're attempting to appeal to three different kinds of audiences, which can be difficult with the duality of the movie's story:
"Assassin's was complicated to develop, because you're working with two time periods, one contemporary and one historical. With two heroes, as you have Callum, the modern-day hero, and his ancestor Aguilar, who have two parallel stories which meet up. Generally in a film, you only have one hero. And with the link between the past and the present, you can't have one of the stories taking precedence over the other. So structurally, it's very complicated."
He continues:
"Our big gamble is that it works for three audiences. Fans of our games, which there are some 95 million of; fans of mainstream cinema who are going to see Star Wars and Spider-Man; and in parallel, we're also aiming it people who would never think of going to see an Assassin's film, people who like independent films."
Baronnet is right that interference from major movie studios who don't know anything about video games is a major contributing factor to the poor quality of video game films. I'm wary of his inclusion of Fassbender in the script process though, as not only does that historically cause enormous problems during filming, but Fassbender is also rumored to have something of a temper. But at the very least they sound aware of the missteps of the movies before them, and that's a good sign.
The Assassin's Creed movie, said to be on a budget of $150-$200 million, is expected on December 21, 2016. The next Assassin's Creed game, Assassins' Creed Syndicate, arrives October 23 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, with a delayed release on PC.
