The Assassin’s Creed movie has hit another stumbling block, and it has been delayed yet again. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film has been shuffled from an August 2015 release date to a currently unknown release date. For quite some time, Michael Fassbender has been attached as a producer and star. However, after going from Sony Pictures to 20th Century Fox, the film has been unable to get off the ground. This is no surprise to me, and I predict the movie will never see the light of day.
The film is rumored to have gone through many script rewrites and scheduling issues. Apparently, it has been moved to 2016, but that is a tall order. Fassbender is a busy man and has many projects on his plate. He is already set to return as Magneto/Erik Lensherr in the next X-men film, X-Men: Apocalypse, which is also due out in 2016. For another film, he is supposed to return as David in a potential sequel to Prometheus. However, in my opinion, that film is really another question mark. Plus, he appears in other various, more personal independent cinema pieces. An Assassin’s Creed movie would be a complicated production that would have to be shot on location and set in multiple time periods. It is unlikely that could be accomplished by 2016.
As 2014 progressed, it became more and more obvious that the 2015 release date is simply impossible. September is nearly over and no film has even gone in front of the cameras. An August 2015 release date for this type of film would have been next to impossible.
Obviously, the studio has not yet seen a script it feels comfortable signing off on. The problem? No video game franchise has truly been adapted into a big, viable movie franchise. When I say big, I mean films like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, James Bond, Jason Bourne, Indiana Jones, etc. In the news, you can read about a lot of studios developing and licensing big video game releases as films, but nothing ever comes of them. The possible Uncharted movie has already gone through multiple writers and directors. The Halo movie has a lot going for it, including, Peter Jackson as a producer, yet the film fell apart at the 11th hour.
Since most of the results have been gigantic disappointments, it comes as no surprise that studios get cold feet when it comes time to put one of these films in front of the cameras. Studio tentpoles cost in the realm of $200-300 million to produce and even more to distribute and advertise. So it comes as no surprise that executives at a studio do not want to take a risk on an unproven franchise at the cinematic box office. Assassin’s Creed is a great series of games, but can it hit all four quadrants and make half a billion or more at the worldwide box office? That is the type of number a movie like this must hit in order to break even or to be seen as a decent success these days. That is why, for all the big video game movie deals, there have been few results from Hollywood. The biggest release was probably Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time from Disney, which was a critical and financial disappointment.
The reports may say 2016 for the long-developing Assassin’s Creed movie. However, the realm of never is more realistic.
i’m actually kinda glad, because the terrible whitewashing of the cast is so offensive