Hollywood: Assassin's Creed Movie Is Doomed

[snfonseka]

What's the worst that can happen? I mean, can someone say all these game movies that "Hollywood" made according to their needs are actually good?

 

[VoidWanderer]

Given how good the games are with only one year of development, I am cautiously optimistic.

 

[Blind marskman]

Good for Ubisoft, remember that the uncharted movie plot was starting to turn intoa third national treasure film

 

[SelectivelyEvil13]

So, Mr. Hollywood analysts, can you tell us precisely why this movie will fail? No? So shut the fuck up.

Ubisoft's live action stuff has been borderline great. If they can make two hours out of it, that's a pass in my books.

lately Game live action has been so much better than shit coming out from hollywood lately imo... check the live action trailer for Deus Ex: HR, Skyrim, AC2.. these video's are amazing... just need a longer version of them

Seriously. I saw the Skyrim one today and almost stopped working out just to watch. But don't think for a second that I wasn't looking at the television out of the corner of my eye the entire time!

What I am curious about is how they would handle the whole "going back in time through your memories" part. The reason is that I never could really get into Assassin' Creed because the only part that interested me was the "back in time" part. But every time I'd open a menu or get some stupid looking "technology reminder" like dying and having to run through the white Matrix-like emptiness completely ruined that best part for me.

I can't imagine how Hollywood would treat these moments. For instance, an ancient action scene would cut back to present day, jogging sweater Jake Boring-as-Hell (I can't even remember what his name was) and then back the cool ancient scene again. It could possibly be similar to one of the Matrix movies. Which Matrix movie is the important part... *glares at Reloaded and Revolutions*

 

[Jimmy Sylvers]

I really do hope this never sees the light of day. I don't think that assassins creed could really translate to feature film. There is just too much content that would have to be cut from it.

Hitman was ruined by film, I try to forget about that but I don't think that I could forgive a botched job of AC too. Which I think it will be Ubisoft controlled or not.

 

[Therumancer]

It should be noted that irregardless of your personal politics the first game which laid the groundwork for this series was basically an attempt to be offensive to a lot of the western world on the war on terror. Ubisoft being a french company, france having opposed The War On Terror for reasons of personal gain given it's breaking of embargos hidden behind the "Oil For Food Program" and still being interested in that money, and also seeking appeasement over their own riots and such.

What your looking at in the final equasion is a game about an Arab largely killing off westerners, in one of the more politically touchy periods of history. The timing of this did not go unnoticed in certain circles, nor did the creators and the politics involved in where they were operating for a lot was written about it.

Really? Only you would come up with an interpretation like this :/

1) France did not oppose the USA on the "War on Terror", in fact it's been a very active supporter of NATO and agreed (to my knowledge) to implement Article 5 after 9/11. It opposed the war in Iraq however (that's where your getting confused), largely because most of the world viewed it as an illegal war, and France is not afraid to criticise US foreign policy.

2)The main bad-guy in the first series is Al Mualim, an Arab. Altair kills Europeans and he also kills Muslims, there's nothing anti-Western about the first Assassins Creed game, basically the game doesn't discriminate between races and religions. Heck, if anything the second and third games lavish praise on the achievements of European civilisation during the Renaissance.

3)The creative director behind Assassins Creed is Canadian, not French. And besides the game is made by a multi-national team anyway. I doubt Ubisoft the publishers spread subversive political messages through their games.

The bottom line is that Assassins Creed is not a French conspiracy to undermine America, it's multi-billion euro historical sci-fi franchise. If it does criticise anything, it's probably established religion, or Catholicism, not the West.

France supporting the invasion of Afghanistan, but opposed the broader efforts that are referred to generally as "The War On Terror", most dramatically in it's vote against the invasion of Iraq, and leading of a lot of the opposition. It was France's opposition preventing a unianimous vote at the UN that made the invasion of Iraq "illegal" so to speak. France's motivations for doing this were that it had been violating embargos preventing trade with Iraq (and other rogue nations) except under specific circumstances. It was using the "Oil For Food" program as a cover for a much broader array of trade, from which it was making billions of dollars due to it was the only ones exploiting the market, albiet covertly. This trade also helping to prop up the regime there because the whole point of the embargo was to try and take it down indirectly by isolating it. This entire situation was a big deal for a while, and also caused a lot of criticism over France's media practices because when this was uncovered you found France trying to prevent it's actions from being revealed to it's own people. They were of course, but not how it should have gone down. At any rate it happened quite some time ago, but look up things like the "Oil For Food Scandal" and so on and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. The bottom line is that France was working against the war efforts for it's own financial gain, and to cover up that it was itself in violation of embargos. It's not as well known as it should be, due to the slant of the media in regards to the ware and international relations, and it can be hard to find a lot of the hard/biting details. At any rate this has a lot to do with how the whole "Freedom Fries" joke got started... because the French were being putzs and then were found with their hands in the cookie jar, making their motives rather apparent. It's also why a lot of people, and not just me, have been making a much bigger deal than usual about not trusting the French.

As far as the rest goes, I know where your coming from, but I think your missing the overall point. The entire "crusade occupied Middle East" with some of the people involved in that rogue's gallery, including the historical referances to real people, isn't likely to go over well.

Heck, you might be right, we'll see if the movie ever gets approved, what it looks like when it's done, and what reception it gets. Personally I think you'll find what I'm saying a lot closer to reality. I actually hope your right on a lot of levels (believe it or not) since it might make for a cool movie and i've enjoyed things far more offensive, but I'm too much of a realist to see it happening.

I'll also say that I'm not the only one who has pointed at Ubisoft being french company (regardless of where the game has been developed) and called the game contreversial to say the least. Indeed that contreversy was part of what seemed to get buzz for it going. What was a benefit for a game and it's audience and type of marketing, is not nessicarly going to be a benefit for a movie.

 

[Abedeus]

I thought most of the movies-from-games failed BECAUSE they had too little influence from the GAME DEVELOPERS, and too much from people who never played or looked at the game.

 

[Azmael Silverlance]

I think thats a brilliant deal. I think this way Ubisoft will have a very high quality AC story approved by them that follows their cannon and also one that can somehow crossover to future games which will be awesome.

Game movies fail beause studious and the guys behind those movies just dont GET IT. They probably never even played the games they got assigned to.

Comic books movies have the same trouble. See how many movies came out and there only 2 truly good and epic comic book movies: Spider-Man 2 and Batman: The Dark Knight.

I think this thing between Sony/Ubisoft can be a success not to mention Sony produce tons of games so they know a thing or two aswell.

We will have to wait and see but im optimistic

 

[jurnag12]

Hollywood is completely right, how can Ubisoft ever hope to make a good game movie without an overly simplistic plot, pointless special effects, and an unnecesary love interest?

In all seriousness, you messed up Doom, Hitman and Max Payne, don't pretend like you know how to make a good game movie.

 

[TheEnglishman]

Well now I really want them to succeed. AC could make a really good movie, will be over seen by the creators, and if it does succeed it'll be a nice up yours to the Hollywood executives.

 

[Korskarn]

The reason that Hollywood insiders believe the movie will never get made is NOT because of anything to do with the creative process (whether it's any good or not), it's to do with risk/control.

Sony is paying all the bills, but Ubisoft is calling all the shots. Ubisoft could demand Sony spends $50million on writing the script, then shred the script and give a page to every employee to wipe their bottom. Ubisoft could demand that all the original programmers be given cameos, and the CEO's wife be cast as the lead love interest. And at each step, Sony is paying the tab.

THAT'S why they're saying it'll fail. You wouldn't give a builder $20k for house renovations without approving the building plans, so why should Sony give Ubisoft a blank cheque? Even Steven Spielberg has someone sitting off to the side saying "Nope, not going to pay for that. Think of something else" - that's how Jaws was made.

 

[mikeybuthge]

See.. I want this movie to succeed, but at the same time, I feel like it's doomed to fail, because of how much control Ubisoft has over it, they could just pull a George Lucas and have a great movie laying under a mass amount of changes that need not be. If that makes sense.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

this...could end badly. While I do agree that the infamy of videogame adaptations has given game makers no reason to trust Hollywood having complete creative control of it could spell disaster.

Plus, can someone answer me this simple question: why do we even NEED game adaptations? This isn't like adapting books or even comics. Doing that at least adds a dimensions, adapting a game takes something away. Clamoring for a film adaptation just comes off as gaming once again proving its self-esteem issues. This is why Nintendo repeatedly refuses film offers.

 

[Evil Top Hat]

Wait, isn't this a good thing? As stated in the article, most game to movie adaptations fail because the sourc ematerial gets trashed and the makers of the film didn't have a clue what they were doing with the universe they were in.

if ubisoft have complete creative control, then we have a film production where everybody knows exactly what they are doing with the source material. What's the problem?

 

[Ranorak]

"It's [Ubisoft's] billion-dollar brand, so I get that they're protective," one unnamed studio executive said. "But they're not moviemakers, and the only way to make sure it's a bad movie is to undervalue what movie studios do -- and this is a deal that totally undervalues what movie studios do."

Yeah, cause so far, you've all been doing such a swimmingly good job.

 

[WanderingFool]

Well, good. Hollywood sucks at making videogame movies, so the less control they have the better. It may well suck, but atleast it would be true to the source material, while the hollywood version would be just complete and utter shit.

 

[Booze Zombie]

I love when people sit about making noise about how they think something can't happen and then it happens. It makes me feel warm inside.

So, I hope it all works out.

 

[irishda]

It'll still be a terrible movie. The biggest audience for a video game movie is the people that played the video game. And, with fanboyism, it's impossible to live up to the expectations of the video gamer audience. They've already got a vision of how the movie should be in their heads and are really just looking to reaffirm that vision. If it's not that vision, then they won't like it. The biggest thing will be if Ubisoft is willing to tell an original story within the game's setting, or if they're just going to rehash a story.

 

[Braedan]

I see "Oh my goodness! Non-snobs are getting control over a movie? They couldn't POSSIBLY make a good selling film! It should only be left to us professionals

People show that you can make great movies without being part of a major studio every year. And I think that Hollywood's showings have made it abundantly clear that you can make absolutely atrocious movies while being a part of said industry.