The marketing campaign for 20th Century Fox and Ubisoft Motion Pictures' Assassin's Creed continues to pick up speed, ahead of the film's release. Based on Ubisoft's video game property of the same name (first published in 2007), the studios behind the film are attempting to attract not only longtime Assassin's Creed fans, but also those less familiar with the franchise, by releasing multiple flashy theatrical trailers and informative behind the scenes videos.
It remains to be seen whether or not Assassin's Creed director Justin Kurzel, re-teaming here with his Macbeth stars Michael Fassbender (X-Men: Apocalypse) and Marion Cotillard (The Dark Knight Rises), will manage to attract a sizable crowd to his video game adaptation this December - though with any luck, Kurzel's film will better manage to both please its fanbase and stand on its own as a film that Warcraft did this past summer. The latest featurette released for the movie reflects that effort, by delving behind the curtain and offering a sneak peek at the illustrious history of the Assassins and Templars in the movie.
In the Assassin's Creed video above, Fassbender and Cotillard do their best to explain the centuries-old battle between the Assassins and Templars - as first established in Ubisoft's original Assassin's Creed video games - in a way to pull in viewers who are not already familiar with the extensive backstory at play in the film adaptation. Of course, those who have played the original Assassin's Creed games will be familiar with all this (and much more).
The Assassin's Creed video provides glimpses at two additional key players in the film, in addition to Callum Lynch (Fassbender) and Dr. Sophia Rikkin (Cotillard). Namely, the video includes appearances by Brendan Gleeson (In the Heart of the Sea) as Joseph, a character who seemingly belongs to the Assassins order, as well as Jeremy Irons (Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice) as Alan Rikkin: the Chief Executive Officer of Abstergo Industries and a key member of the Inner Sanctum of the Templar Order. Alan is also Sophia's father, as those reading this no doubt figured out.
Assassin's Creed has the built-in fanbase and grandiose narrative history behind it to be turned into a thrilling action-adventure spectacle for the big screen. However, being based on such a well-known intellectual property only increases the risk that what people enjoy most about the original Assassin's Creed video games will be lost in translation when they make the jump from one medium to another. Still, here's to hoping the film breaks the infamous video game movie "curse".
Source: 20th Century Fox