Justin Kurzel, Marion Cotillard and Michael Fassbender, fresh off creating one of the finest Shakespearian films in recent memory with Macbeth, will reunite later this year to tackle Ubisoft’s historical epic Assassin’s Creed.
A science fiction franchise at its core, the video game mega-franchise centers around players unlocking the DNA memories of their ancestors, effectively gaining the ability to relive the events of yesteryear. It’s a creative well that has allowed the Assassin’s Creed series to hop between the American Revolution and Ancient Italy, and Fassbender underlined these sci-fi tendencies during a recent interview with Empire.
In fact, the one film that the actor compared Assassin’s Creed to was The Matrix, and while we don’t expect Justin Kurzel’s adaptation to utilize bullet time or jet-black trench coats anytime soon, Fassbender touched base on how the concept elevates the film from your standard fantasy fare.
“The idea of DNA memory elevates it from a basic fantasy genre [piece], because you have something an audience can actually believe in,” Fassbender said. “I’ve always thought about The Matrix when we’ve approached this.”
Having recently wrapped up principal photography – a shoot that brought production to London, Spain and Malta – the actor then reflected on the attention to detail going into creating Assassin’s Creed for the big screen, and it’s a process that seemingly involves “very little green screen.”
“There’s very little green screen in this, which is highly unusual in these films,” he stresses. “We have stunt guys jumping across buildings in (Maltese capital) Valletta. We’ve got (stunt man) Damian Walters doing a 120-foot leap of faith, without any rope, into a bag, so it’s pretty incredible to see.”
Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson and Ariane Labed complete the cast for Justin Kurzel’s Assassin’s Creed, which is poised to swan dive into theaters on December 21 in North America.