ASSASSIN’S CREED
On set with Michael Fassbender and the Assassin’s Creed movie
Remastered Ezio Collection aside, Assassin’s Creed is skipping a year on PS4. But you can bet it’ll make up for it in 2017, thanks to Michael Fassbender. The actor, best known as young metal-bender Magneto in the X-Men movies, is about to make a killing in Assassin’s Creed as both 15th century Spanish assassin Aguilar de Nerha and his modern day descendant Callum Lynch. But as OPM discovers when meeting Fassbender on the film’s Maltese set, life as an assassin isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…
“It was hot. Seriously hot,” Fass gasps, reflecting on the day’s exhausting shoot. “We were leaking in those costumes. Assassins are a pretty funky-smelling bunch!”
Fassbender can be forgiven for his cheesy odour; he has just spent the day running across rooftops, fighting his way out of certain death and tracking down an artefact which may or may not be a piece of Eden. By his side is fellow Assassin Maria (Ariane Labed). In pursuit? Local Templars, led by Grand Inquisitor Tomas de Torquemada. Central to the vision of Australian director Justin Kurzel – the man behind last year’s rapturously-reviewed Macbeth – is reality, which means, more often than not, it’s Fassbender himself on screen slicing with Aguilar’s hidden
IT WAS IMPORTANT THAT WE WEREN’T JUST COPYING THE GAME.
blades, or performing death-defying leaps between rickety rafters.
“We got all the weapons made for real. We did all the fight sequences with the weapons. We really did put Michael on wires, jumping across buttresses. We did a real Leap Of Faith,” Kurzel says. “There was an attempt to make it feel human.”
JUMPIN’ JACK FASS
Yes, as the trailer (and a thrilling behind-the-scenes video) makes clear, there is a genuine Leap Of Faith in Assassin’s Creed. Though, perhaps sensibly, Fassbender’s commitment to performing his own stunts didn’t extend to the 120-foot free fall. “[Stuntman] Damien Walters did that,” Fassbender says. “Thank God, because that Leap Of Faith was pretty terrifying to watch.”
While the film takes place in the same universe as the games – Ezio
is concurrently stealthing his way through Italy – exploring a previously unseen setting with a new Assassin was integral to Ubisoft’s plan for Creed’s expansion to the big screen. “When you are a gamer you become the character, so it’s very dangerous to use the same character as the main hero [in a movie],” says Ubisoft Motion Pictures CEO Jean-Julien Baronnet, who has a cheeky cameo in Creed. “I’m not saying there won’t be some references, but we want to work with different characters and that will be the case for all the Assassin’s Creed movies.”
Of course, the historical sequences (or “regressions”) are only half the story. But unlike the games, the film will take place primarily in the present day as Fassbender’s convicted murderer, Callum Lynch, is pulled off death row by Sophia Rikkin (Marion Cotillard), daughter of Abstergo bigwig Alan Rikkin (Jeremy Irons), so Callum can explore his ancestor’s memories through a new claw-armed Animus. To avoid a case of the Desmonds, the movie team has strived to ensure Callum is as compelling as Aguilar.
SEVILLE LIBERTIES
“It was interesting to me to start him off as a wild dog who discovers he is a leader,” Kurzel says. “There’s an edge to the game, and we’re trying to embrace that within the evolution of this present-day character when he finds out he’s part of something greater than himself.”
With one of the most exciting directors and stars around, and the full force of Ubisoft and Fox Studios behind it, everything points to a film that (whisper it) could finally break the guff videogame movie curse.
“It was really important to us that we weren’t just copying the game,” Kurzel asserts. “That we found our own cinematic language to make it a different experience from what you get by playing it. But at the same time it was about bringing the whole concept of the game to life. We embrace it and celebrate it.” Assassin’s Creed is due to hit UK cinemas on 1 January 2017.