ASSASIN ’S CREED
Fassbender takes vidgame adaps to the cutting edge.
“The challenge is how you breach the present and the past”
justin kurzel
DIRECTOR Justin Kurzel STARRING Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Ariane Labed
ETA 26 December Videogame movies have a toxic reputation, and for good reason, as anyone who’s seen the retina-soiling Super Mario Bros. can attest. But if any film is going to break the console to screen curse it’s Assassin’s Creed. The megabudget adaptation of Ubisoft’s phenomenally successful stab-’em-up series reunites the key creative talent behind 2015’s extraordinary
Macbeth, including stars Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, director Justin Kurzel and cinematographer Adam Arkapaw. The Fass is also producing for the first time, but as someone who readily admits to playing the games only a few times, what convinced him to put all his chips on (blood) red?
“I thought it was a really cool concept to start from,” Fassbender tells Total Film. “I wanted to take an audience on a fantasy ride, but give them something that fits some sort of scientific theory. That was a really interesting element to the game.” The pseudo-science that drives Assassin’s
Creed’s millenia-spanning mythology is powered by the Animus – a machine that allows people in the present to relive the memories of their ancestors. Enter Callum Lynch (Fassbender, clean shaven), an outsider institutionalised since his teens until he’s recruited by the mysterious Abstergo Industries because of his genetic connection to 15th Century Spaniard Aguilar (Fassbender, beardy). The agile assassin and his fellow brotherhood of killers have been locked in a conflict with the Templars for centuries but unlike the games, which have increasingly focused on historical action over contemporary intrigue, the film will offer a closer connection between the two eras. “The real challenge is how you breach the present and the past,” says Kurzel. “We have many devices that we’ve worked into the present that almost feel as though the history of the film is shadowing the present day.”
Set in the same universe as the games, but featuring an entirely new location and mostly new characters (we’d put good money on the series’ most popular protagonist, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, getting at least a wink-and-nod mention), the film is being made with both long-standing fans and viewers new to a world of hidden blades and x-ray eagle vision in mind. It’s a smart move; often videogame-based movies fail because they attempt to translate their story to a different, less suitable medium, but Assassin’s Creed has been built for the cinema from the ground up. Though it will share the series’ central conflict, with the film’s heroes and villains occupying near identical, morally murky territory. In essence they’re two sides of the same throwing knife, the early Renaissance equivalent of Team Cap vs Team Iron Man with the Assassins striving for free will even if it risks chaos, while the Templars crave control in order to keep people safe.
With the modern day, Abstergo-set sequences (also featuring Jeremy Irons’ Abstergo boss Alan Rikkin, and Marion Cotillard as his daughter) filming in London, and the historical parts shooting on location in sundrenched Spain and Malta, it’s already the frontrunner for this year’s most visually distinctive blockbuster. The expansive sets, practical weaponry and intricately choreographed, in-camera parkour action were all part of Kurzel’s plan to give the film a grand but grounded feel in keeping with his earthy adaptation of Macbeth. “I really was reluctant to film it all on green screen in a car park,” Kurzel laughs. “Those great films like
Lawrence Of Arabia – you can feel the effort going into them in terms of trying to recreate a world through costumes and through sets and locations that immerse you. That, to me, was very important.”