After watching its lucrative properties get snapped up by Hollywood, only to linger in the endless re-spawn limbo of development, game giant Ubisoft is taking matters into its own hands, with the company’s Motion Pictures division working up 3D titles based on the likes of Splinter Cell, Assassin’s Creed and Ghost Recon.
Splinter Cell was picked up years ago, with Peter Berg at one point attached to direct. But since then, very little has been heard of it. The game series follows an elite secret agent battling eevil terrorists and trying to protect his daughter.
Assassin’s Creed, meanwhile, is based around the secret conflict between the Templars and Assassins, who have spread their influence across history. And then there’s Ghost Recon, which finds a team of soldiers utilising high-tech weaponry to fight for world peace.
The film arm of the company was launched in January and now the big bosses are planning to travel to LA next month to start taking meetings with studios and writers’ agents. "We want to keep ownership, retain control over the film content, and we're open to work with studios on the development of our projects, and eventually collaborate on the pre-casting, pre-budget and script,” Jean-Julian Baronnet tells Variety.
The plan is to have a script ready for at least Assassin’s Creed by the end of the year. So the big question now is, who do you want to see tackling these games as movies? Any choices?