Video game adaptations are one of the most hit-and-miss things in the world of entertainment. Live-action adaptations have a terrible hit rate, and animated ones can either be good, basic, or something that you can tell “was just made to make some money.” Ironically, Assassin’s Creed has already had one such adaptation, as it was made into a movie some time ago starring Michael Fassbender. The movie wasn’t received well, and a sequel was never made. So, you’d be forgiven for thinking no one would ever attempt doing one again. Except, Netflix has revealed that they’re doing just that via a live-action TV series.
As you would expect, the series will focus on the “secret war” between the Brotherhood of Assassins and the Templars. The show will also dive into various points of history to help showcase how deep things go. In a statement given to Variety, showrunners Roberto Patino and David Wiener had this to say about the series:
“We’ve been fans of ‘Assassin’s Creed’ since its release in 2007. Every day we work on this show, we come away excited and humbled by the possibilities that ‘Assassin’s Creed’ opens to us. Beneath the scope, the spectacle, the parkour and the thrills is a baseline for the most essential kind of human story — about people searching for purpose, struggling with questions of identity and destiny and faith. It is about power and violence and sex and greed and vengeance. But more than anything, this is a show about the value of human connection, across cultures, across time. And it’s about what we stand to lose as a species, when those connections break. We’ve got an amazing team behind us with the folks at Ubisoft and our champions at Netflix, and we’re committed to creating something undeniable for fans all over the planet.”
The question here is whether the show can do what the movie could not. In truth, a TV series would have “more room to breathe,” and not have to rush various plotlines or attempt to come up with something new. Then again, we don’t have a fixed story setting, or even if the game’s original main character will be the star of this show. Everything is still up in the air.
How the action looks will also be key in this show, as the assassins have a unique way of doing things, and that needs to come across.
We’ll have to wait and see how it all turns out for Netflix and Ubisoft.
