Michael Fassbender’s rise to fame either started with 300 or Inglorious Basterds. That much, we know. And while the debate on which one truly birthed his career can rage on, his attachment to the film adaptation of Assassin’s Creed marks its eminent, disappointing death. I caught up with the once-actor between the airport and his car to get his reaction to the sad news about his choice of profession going the way of the Dodo.
“I’m just tired of acting,” the former thespian said. “It’ll be, mentally, way easier to just put a hood on and not emote for two hours. The most ‘acting’ I’ll ever have to do is blending in with a crowd of hookers, and I’m alright with that.”
The film adaptation of the 30-million-selling Assassin’s Creed series is being developed by Ubisoft Motion Pictures, which was created over a year ago but still has no website. According to Jean-Julien Baronnet, CEO of UMP, the Assassin’s Creed film will “…bring brand awareness to a whole new set of consumers.” Despite Baronnet’s insistence that making an Assassin’s Creed movie will up game sales and bring a new audience into the fold, a quick check with my wife debunks his theory. “Meh. It’ll be a lot of a guy hiding and jumping on shit.” That kind of “brand awareness” by people who’ve never played the game before doesn’t seem to bode well for the film or Fassbender’s future marketability.
Fassbender gazes at his prospects after Assassin’s Creed…
…and then plummets along with them
On the other side of the coin, rabid Assassin’s Creed fanboys might make up for the loss in ticket sales due to no one else caring. According to a Gamespot forum commenter, “This will be an epic movie for an epic game series that’s best played on xbox 360.” Loads of other praise Actually, I can’t really find any more unabashed enthusiasm for the film. In an omen worthy of Gregory Peck, even the forums are full of Debbie Downers. Another commenter announces his morbid wish for Fassbender’s death with a quote from the game: “As Ezio Said, ‘Requesca De Pache’ Michael Fassbender. You will defile our sacred creed with bad performance and acting.” So, it looks like both the people who have played the game and the ones who haven’t are already marking their calendars to make sure they’re not in the theater the day it comes out.
Fassbender doesn’t really care either way. “Look,” he said nonchalantly. “Ben Kingsley is doing just fine, and he was in Prince of Persia, A Sound of Thunder, and Bloodrayne. Maybe you guys are overreacting. Whatever, though. I’ll get paid, and maybe it’ll make its budget back. Win-win.”
In this pivotal scene, Fassbender sits on a bench while people converse off-screen about boring conspiracy theories
In another crucial moment, Fassbender climbs on a bunch of rooftops to stare at symbols on a wall
Personally, I’m with this forum-goer who loudly proclaimed “What? Fassy is way to cool for Assassins Creed… maybe he meant Bioshock or MGS.” I’d be down for Fassbender taking on floating psychics, fat men on rocket roller skates, and a guy that commands a hive of bees with his mind. What do you think? What video game character do you want to see Fassbender play?
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Twitter: ThatbadassJC
July 9, 2012 6:01 pm
I’m hoping for all involved this will buck the trend of bad videogame adaptions.
Twitter: callmesirphobos
July 9, 2012 6:21 pm
Off the top of my head, the only good game-to-movie adaptations are Silent Hill, the first Resident Evil (it’s only decent), and the Tomb Raiders. The rest ranges from pretty bad to dog shit.
Twitter: ThatbadassJC
July 9, 2012 6:28 pm
I forgot about Silent Hill. I think i found that one alright except for its ending. But yeah, videogames haven’t translated to movies as well as say comic books
Twitter: callmesirphobos
July 9, 2012 6:34 pm
I think one of the reasons for that is video game companies have mostly just given away their IPs to whoever forked over the cash. The comic book movies have bigger/better directors and all that.
Twitter: ThatbadassJC
July 9, 2012 8:32 pm
True. Although i think another reason is that most games are focused on gameplay/interactivity rather than story. And even the ones that are tend to be much longer than movies, so story has to be condensed.This makes them harder to adapt than other creative medium’s
Twitter: callmesirphobos
July 9, 2012 8:46 pm
Yea, and if that’s shown to be the case in all of them, it would seem like they just shouldn’t be made into movies. I have no problem with that.
Twitter: ThatbadassJC
July 9, 2012 8:52 pm
I think it might be better to find a videogame was a universe expansive enough tat one can make a separate story in it
Twitter: callmesirphobos
July 9, 2012 10:05 pm
I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a whole bunch of game properties that would fit that bill. Mass Effect, Halo…??
The problem is most universes aren’t really fleshed out enough to begin with. Whoever makes the movie version would have to just make up a whole lot of shit. At that point, why not just make your own, new property?
the comic book movies have so much more source material to make a better movie. a video game that just comes out doesn’t have the 40 or more years of stories that would look awesome on the big screen.
mortal kombat made two movies and they failed miserably. games are a tough sell to those that do NOT play the games, while comic books, well, who doesn’t love a good batman movie??
Holy crap… that WAS Fassbender in Basterds, wasn’t it?
Twitter: callmesirphobos
July 9, 2012 7:49 pm
Yep. That was before I knew who he was. It was also a revelation that he was in 300.
Was he that shirtless guy in 300 who was yelling?
Twitter: callmesirphobos
July 9, 2012 9:23 pm
Maybe. He could have been that other shirtless guy with a shield who was kneeling stoically.
Twitter: ThatbadassJC
July 9, 2012 9:42 pm
I thought Butler the guy who was yelling, or was there more than one character who yelled in that movie?
Dammit, now i’m just confused.
I completely disagree with the article. I find the casting to be insanely perfect and the fact that Fassbender’s also been announced as a producer on the film leads me to wonder if it’s because he’ll actually have some creative control over the project. I read that Ubisoft’s one and only choice for the film adaptation was Fassbender and I really can’t see this being a bad thing. He’s a great actor, has the appearance of an assassin, and can certainly pull of all of the languages and dialects necessary to be convincing enough for the role. The next step is just finding a great director.
Twitter: ThatbadassJC
July 9, 2012 8:46 pm
Uhhh Dude, the article is just satire referencing the poor track record of videogame adaptions. I think we all want this one to be good, but videogame movies haven’t had much luck in the quality department.
Twitter: callmesirphobos
July 9, 2012 8:50 pm
You’re right about Fassbender. He’s truly awesome, and if anyone could pull off a character like this, it would be him. I don’t think he’ll have as much creative control as you’re saying, though, because Ubisoft is developing it in-house so they can keep control. He’ll have some input, sure. Yea, a good director is key. Who would you want for this?
But I haven’t seen anything from Ubisoft (Prince of Persia) or any other adaptation that would lead me to believe this would be really good. It’s possible, and I’m all for it not sucking.
Twitter: callmesirphobos
July 9, 2012 9:38 pm
I’ll also point out that Bob Hoskins looks like Mario and is a great actor.
@dirtywithclass.. I understand the sarcasm lol. I think i just worded the first part of my comment wrong.
Not to plug myself or anything, but while the interwebz is full of discussion about the casting and announcement, I didn’t really find anything talking about possible directors. If anyone is interested, you can check out my choices
http://www.cinekatz.com/2012/07/pick-six-possible-directors-for.html
Twitter: callmesirphobos
July 9, 2012 10:21 pm
Just read your list. I’m going to throw my director pick into the mix: Neil Marshall. I just watched Centurion over the weekend, and his visual style would work really well. The main problem with an AC movie is that they’d have to just make up a whole new story. The one in the game is crap, and if they can’t make it worthwhile over 100 hours of gameplay, I see no reason why it would work in a 2 hour movie. So whoever writes it will have to be a damn genius regardless of who’s directing.
Twitter: MarkusWelby1
July 10, 2012 7:46 am
I just hope they stay true to the game in that when he makes it outside a certain perimeter, the people chasing him across rooftops just give up.
Twitter: callmesirphobos
July 11, 2012 9:32 pm
Don’t forget people throwing rocks at him as he climbs up the side of a building.
Twitter: agracru
July 13, 2012 6:44 am
Thing is, it’s hard to take this article as satire when it’s not that far off base (though it is quite funny).
There are NO good video game adaptations. I don’t care what anyone says on this topic– they’re wrong. Look back at video game movies in the last ten years and try to make an argument for one as being legitimately good in any way, shape, or form; you’ll probably start to feel silly about a third of the way in.
That’s probably because many video games are themselves quite silly– not to say that they’re not worth playing or anything, but Mario is inherently silly, as an example– but also because no one has ever really attempted to make a real movie out of a video game premise. Silent Hill comes close, and you could make an argument for Final Fantasy, but the former is just decent whereas the latter is a frigging disaster.
Video game inspired movies seem to do much better. Scott Pilgrim very obviously draws on video game influences and that’s a pretty damn great movie.
But I digress. Maybe this isn’t going to be a career killer for Fassbender, but it’s a really, really odd move to make given how much of a critical darling he’s become. Seriously, he’s nearly untouchable. I can’t see an Assassin’s Creed movie keeping that intact, unless he has some really classy ideas in mind for both narrative, cast, and crew. The right talent could take the basic seed of the game’s presence and turn it into a full-blown narrative that’s worth watching. I’d be thrilled if that happened.
Final Fantasy: Advent Children
Twitter: agracru
July 13, 2012 9:52 am
Isn’t that more video game inspired, though? Regardless, it’s not really all that good, either.
My biggest problem with that movie– and I have others– is that it kind of requires you to play a video game to make sense of its particulars. That’s not exactly what I call good storytelling.
Twitter: callmesirphobos
July 13, 2012 12:16 pm
This isn’t where I want to get into the debate about objectivity when it comes to movies being “good” or not, but that was a pretty arrogant thing to say. You even called Silent Hill decent, which seems to go against saying there are no good ones in any way, shape, or form. And I think the Tomb Raider movies did an excellent job of capturing the essence of the games while also being good popcorn fun. They didn’t fall into a lot of traps that even regular action flicks do, and I don’t have any shame in saying I enjoyed them. Are they perfect? What movie is? But to say I’m wrong if I think they’re good in any way is, well, wrong. Of course, I’m with you in that most of the video game adaptations are crap, and I’ll hopefully have more examples of really good ones in the future, but I still think there are a few out there with legitimately good aspects.
And Mario is your example of why video games are silly? Try Bioshock, Shadow of the Colossus, Prince of Persia, Mass Effect, Condemned, Fatal Frame, Silent Hill, Uncharted, Siren, Trine, etc etc. I know you said “many” games are silly, but it sounds like you think they’re all just mindless entertainment. I could look at summer CG blockbusters and make the same generalization about movies, and I’d be just as wrong.
You’re right about Scott Pilgrim, though. That is awesome.
I also agree about Fassbender. Why he’s doing this is a mystery to me. The only thing I can think of is that he’s a giant fan of the series, so he wants to try to make it good. IMO, Ubisoft failed at every attempt at storytelling in at least the first 3 AC games, so the fact that they’re keeping production in-house does nothing for me. We’ll have to wait and see, I guess.
Sorry to go off on a tirade, there. I get all up in arms when defending games. I just think they’re worth the fight, and people tend to over-generalize them.
Twitter: agracru
July 13, 2012 12:58 pm
It’s not arrogant at all. It’s my opinion. I’m still waiting for someone to make a video game movie that satisfies what I look for in a “good” movie. That doesn’t mean I don’t value some of them, because even trash has value, but I think arguing in favor of them on the basis of quality is stretching it. I mean, I love the hell out of the Mario movie– but it’s awful. And Silent Hill just being “decent” doesn’t contradict my assertion, either, because decent != good.
As far as generalizing video games…well, you bring up a couple examples that I think stand out from general gaming silliness. I love the hell out of Bioshock and Mass Effect (and while I’m at it, Dragon Age: Origins, and Dead Space/Dead Space 2) because they temper their inherent gaminess with pretty thoughtful thematic stuff and some well-done narratives. But these only comprise a handful of titles out of a sea of others that really don’t give a crap about being anything other than engaging pieces of entertainment. Remember, I’m not saying that “silly” means “valueless”– so I think equating my comments with criticism of genre filmmaking is pretty off-base, especially considering that video games and movies represent two very, very different pursuits. (Also: Mario is my example of a video game that is silly.)
I’m also not calling video games mindless entertainment, at least not at large. Some of them are only that, and they’re terrible, just like movies that seek to be nothing but mindless entertainment. A game like Viewtiful Joe might be insanely fun, but it’s also insanely ridiculous, and it doesn’t offer anything in between either polemic. So I love it– but damn, is it ever silly.
Assassin’s Creed has historical fiction aspects that might attract someone like Fassbender to it, but you might be right that he’s just a fan of the series. Could also be that the numbers are right, and he wants to see if he can snag himself a franchise of his very own. But we won’t know if this is a good decision or not until we see the finished picture. Right now I just want to know who else is going to hop on board.
I get defending games, so I won’t begrudge you that. For my part I think gamers should be more realistic about what the majority of the games they play represent. Bioshock is one of the rare games that I’ll champion as being a transcendent experience in gaming culture (along with many of the others mentioned), but I really don’t see getting worked up when someone tells me that League of Legends is silly. Hell yes it is. And I used to play it. Guilty. But I don’t care because I played it because it’s fun.
Twitter: callmesirphobos
July 16, 2012 3:55 pm
Do you see the interactive nature of games as a hindrance toward them being more than compelling entertainment? Or by “gaminess,” do you mean stuff like bad dialogue, no story or character arc, random fetch quests, etc?