Assassin's Creed lead star and producer Michael Fassbender has revealed earlier this week to IGN that work has already begun on a sequel, with an idea for a third also in the works.
Executive Producer Pat Crowley also explained why the movie will not include any characters from any of the games:
"We essentially did them all on our own because we wanted to have an original script. It’s a movie that’s based on the game, but it’s not a movie that is the game.”
Director Justin Kurzel told IGN that the decision to use fresh characters stemmed from the fact that the Assassin's Creed games have so much backstory already that he wanted to offer fans and new viewers something new.
“It was about trying to inject a new character who can have some sort of relationship with the game perhaps in the future. It was essentially about finding a character that was fresh. It’s an origin story too. It’s about a man that doesn’t realize he’s an Assassin in the present day and discovers that and discovers skills and discovers an identity and discovers that he’s part of a tribe. That became the real focus that we concentrated on. We needed, especially in the present day, a character that enabled us to do that.”
Way to overuse the word "discover." Still, Kurzel and Crowley worked very closely with Ubisoft, making sure this movie followed the rules set in the Assassin's Creed universe already. Ubisoft "ambassadors" also visited the set to make sure everything was in line. They also brought on Armorer Tim Wildgoose, huge Assassin's Creed fan, to make the weapons. As such, there will be loads of Easter Eggs for fans to spot, including Connor's bow from AC III, the Guillotine Gun form AC Unity, Shao Jun's sword from AC Chronicles: China, and more.
“Justin basically said to me, because I know the games very well, ‘Pick whatever you think would be iconic,’” said Wildgoose. “That also means I get to choose my favorite weapons and make them for real. We're just going to have it in the background somewhere so fans can watch and spot these things.”
The Assassin's Creed movie will hit theatres December 21, 2016. If things go well and the movie sells, there will no doubt be a sequel. I believe fans will watch, if nothing else then out of curiosity that video game movies will finally be good.
So, 20th Century Fox and Justin Kurzel's team will just have to make sure not to disappoint. Nobody wants sequels to a bad movie. To all the AC fans out there, let's all hope (and maybe pray) this one will break the bad track record.
