Leave it eveveryone's favorite French publisher to bring Hollywood up at a time like this. Video game movies are suffering from the economic downturn just like everyone else! LAY OFF.
Ubisoft is hoping to turn that around by intensifying prouction of their Assassin's Creed movie project to keep up with its scheduled 2014 release date. While the film has no director, Michael Fassbender and his special brand of full-frontal nudity are on board, whether you want a naked Assassin or not.
What's more, Variety reports that New Regency has joined the project to bring the film to life:
Although financial terms were not disclosed, New Regency will finance part of the pic's production — participation Ubisoft was seeking so it doesn't have to shoulder much of the risk as it ventures into filmmaking.
"We want to be sure that we're not taking too much of a risk but that we're still very involved on the creative side," Ubisoft Motion Pictures CEO Jean-Julien Baronnet said.
While many game-to-film adaptations are strictly licensing pacts, with the gamemaker having little say in how the film is developed, Ubisoft is taking a more hands-on approach with "Assassin's Creed."
And why not? Assassin's Creed obviously makes a lot of money for Ubisoft on a regular basis, with Assassin's Creed III being among the top titles this year. In fact, I'd like to see more IP holders in the video game industry take a more active role in the development of their characters and universes in other media.
In addition to preserving elements of the game that make up its DNA, like the design of its characters and historical elements, it hopes to tie in the release of a film with a new launch.
"We don't want to make games just for the sake of movies," Baronnet said. "We want to make them in concert with the games."
Let's just hope that the philosophy has changed since James Cameron's Avatar. Yeesh! If you're just joining us, be sure to check out the Lineage project Ubisoft used to test the movie-making waters above.
