20th Century Fox’s planned adaptation of the hit video game Assassin’s Creed has a leading man (in Michael Fassbender) and a release date. The production remained in desperate need of a director to pilot its course, though reports say the right person might have been hired.
Safe House director Daniel Espinosa has emerged as the frontrunner for the Assassin’s Creed gig, according to Twitch, which says that "persistent talk" links the filmmaker and the studio on this project. Creed is a massive undertaking for whomever assumes the responsibility. For those who’ve never played the game, it is a sprawling epic of a narrative involving a character being sent back in time to silently hunt enemies in lavish, detail-oriented reproductions of Italy, the Middle East and other historic locations. Look at this spectacular game play!
Whomever takes the Creed job will be lost in history textbooks and maps, hoping to recreate these gorgeous landscapes on screen. There are fantastic stories in the Assassin’s Creed mythology, which spans multiple video games, books, animated shorts and more. The challenge might be streamlining the information resting in the game into a single movie, though I’m sure Fox harbors franchise potential with this saga (you know, when Fassbender isn’t playing mutant games with his X-Men friends).
Espinosa, meanwhile, broke on the scene with the Swedish action thriller Snabba Cash (also known as Easy Money), which introduced the world to Joel Kinnaman – before RoboCop. Martin Scorsese loved the movie so much, he was willing to lend his name to it when The Weinstein Company pushed it through a limited U.S. release. Watch the trailer to get a sense of Espinosa’s directorial style.
Is he the man for Creed? We hope to get studio confirmation soon. The pieces are in place for Creed to start filming, and soon. Fox has set a release date of Aug. 7, 2015. Do you play the games? Are you interested in this big-screen adaptation? And does the potential hiring of Espinosa float your boat? Weigh in.
