Aside from the questionable choice of music – played against Kanye West’s “I Am A God” – the initial reception to last week’s first trailer for Assassin’s Creed has been overly positive, and there’s no question that Justin Kurzel and the team at New Regency are going all-in on their high-profile rendition of Ubisoft’s historical tentpole.
Pegged to arrive in December, it’s launching in the same year as Warcraft: The Beginning and Sony’s Angry Birds movie, but Ubisoft is quietly confident that Assassin’s Creed will be the one to break the longstanding streak of middling video game movies.
Per Twitter, Ubisoft’s Azaizi Aymar rubbished claims that movies based on games are doomed to fail.
That’s a view echoed right across the board, too, with mooted reports of a direct sequel already beginning to surface months before Justin Kurzel’s live-action movie makes its debut. As a matter of fact, Ubisoft producer Pat Crowley told IGN that Assassin’s Creed won’t go down as a flash in the pan: “It’s not a one-off. Everybody expects that this movie will continue.”
Those early plans for two new installments have reportedly piqued the interest of Michael Fassbender, who produces and stars in the upcoming actioner as Callum Lynch, a “descendant of the secret Assassins society through unlocked genetic memories that allow him to relive the adventures of his ancestor, Aguilar, in 15th Century Spain. After gaining incredible knowledge and skills he’s poised to take on the oppressive Knights Templar in the present day.”
With a timeline that will feature more present day sequences than many had anticipated, Assassin’s Creed scurries into theaters on December 21 where Marion Cotillard, Ariane Labed, Michael K. Williams, Jeremy Irons and Brendan Gleeson also star.