Trailer 2
I’m excited for this because I know someone in the film. She even made this trailer. 
Interesting…
…I’m surprised to see this film take such an international turn. But then again, I tend to underestimate the videogame based films.
‘The Revenant’ Executive Producer Talks ‘Assassin’s Creed,’ India-China Film Ties
5:19 AM PST 11/22/2016 by Nyay Bhushan
Courtesy of NFDC
Philip Lee
Philip Lee, who is attending the Film Bazaar in Goa, says he has been developing a possible India-China co-production.
At a time when film industry ties between Hollywood and China keep strengthening by the day, India and China can similarly explore such opportunities, producer Philip Lee tells The Hollywood Reporter.
The executive producer of such titles as Oscar-winning The Revenant, Cloud Atlas and Assassin’s Creed, which stars Marion Cotillard and Michael Fassbender and opens in December, says collaborations between the two Asian giants, which signed a co-production treaty in 2014, “should really be driven by the content that can be jointly produced.”
Lee is this week attending the Film Bazaar event in Goa, organized by the Indian government’s National Film Development Corporation. The annual event, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary, has become the go-to platform for India’s evolving indie scene to be mentored and incubated through a mix of workshops, script and production labs and other sessions. Over the years, Film Bazaar has helped develop such projects as 2012 breakout The Lunchbox and films that have been selected as India’s entries for the foreign-language race at the Oscars, such as 2014’s Liar’s Dice and last year’s Court.
Lee will hold a master class at the Bazaar on Thursday titled “Mounting and Positioning the Epic Across Cultures.”
As someone who has been at the intersection of Hollywood and China since he started his career as Hong Kong line producer for films such as Dragon – The Bruce Lee Story and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, Lee has now bridged that gap further with the recent launch of financing and production company Facing East Entertainment. Lee’s earlier credits include such titles as Chen Kaige’s The Emperor and the Assassin, Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Zhang Yimou’s Hero.
Co-founded with Lee’s longtime producing partner Markus Barmettler, Facing East is currently producing Peter Segal’s sci-fi action title Inversion, scripted by Paul Haggis. The firm is also developing another sci-fi project, Shipbreaker, based on the award-winning book by Paolo Bacigalupi, which will also be scripted by Haggis, who will direct the project. The company has also partly financed Terrence Malick’s Radegund, which is slated for a 2018 release.
Lee says the upcoming Jackie Chan starrer Kung-Fu Yoga "is a great example of connecting the right talent with the right content.” He feels that the Stanley Tong-directed film should do well, but he also points out that it is “probably an exception” in trying to create similar projects in future. "But I guess these things take time,” he adds. “Ten years ago, the relationship between Hollywood and China was nowhere close to where it is now [with Chinese investment growing in Hollywood and Hollywood movies doing such strong box office in China].”
On his part, Lee has been developing a possible India-China project, 19 Steps, since 2008 with well-known South Indian filmmaker Bharat Bala. “It is a historical fiction project and is based on an original story,” he says, emphasizing that the project is still at the planning stage.
While Lee admits he hasn’t seen many Indian films, he says he is impressed with the talents of M. Night Shyamalan, who is of Indian origin. He lauds the director’s The Sixth Sense as “the perfect example of a story that travels across cultures.” He adds: “In Chinese and Indian culture, for instance, we are aware that the soul is still alive even if the body dies. But that was a unique concept for American and Western audiences, which is why the film did so well.”
Lee also draws parallels to the ambitious Cloud Atlas, for which he helped raise part of its financing, as a film that tackled the subject of “reincarnation, which is something we know in Asian culture as well.” Lee tells THR that after Cloud Atlas came out, Nolan wrote a letter to directors the Wachowskis, saying that “the movie is great, but there’s only one problem – it is 20 years too early.”
Assassin’s Creed star Fassbender was quoted as saying that he thought the film could be compared to The Matrix. Asked about that, Lee says that “the film travels between dimensions, so perhaps you could say it is something like The Matrix." The adaptation of the popular video game franchise centers on the centuries-long struggle between the Assassins and the Templars.
As for his upcoming projects, Lee tells THR he is working on a Broadway musical adaptation of Farewell My Concubine, which saw a 1993 film version directed by Chen Kaige. Says Lee: “Now here is another example of how Indian films – which are known for their song and dance – can perhaps be translated for Broadway."
Assassin’s Creed | Official HD Trailer #3 | 2017
JAN 1st is the U.K. premiere. I think the U.S. premiere is still DEC 21 - next week, in the wake of Rogue One.
[QUOTE=GeneChing;1298699]
//youtu.be/OWnOybPAhM4
JAN 1st is the U.K. premiere. I think the U.S. premiere is still DEC 21 - next week, in the wake of Rogue One.[/QUOTE]
The assassin gets killed in the end. LOL.
Can’t wait thanks for the heads up.
Opens tomorrow
Assassin’s Creed producer Philip Lee says Chinese cinema ‘may be getting worse’
The producer of Cloud Atlas; The Dark Knight; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; and The Revenant loves the challenge of balancing art and business
BY HONG XINYI
20 DEC 2016
Philip Lee has worked on Hollywood movies including (from left) Cloud Atlas; The Dark Knight; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; and The Revenant. Photo: Jeff Chang
Even ardent film buffs might be hard-pressed to identify what the following directors have in common: Mexico’s Alejandro González Iñárritu; Englishman Christopher Nolan; Canadian Paul Haggis; Germany’s Tom Tykwer; Dutchman Jan de Bont; Americans Terrence Malick and the Wachowski siblings; Hong Kong’s Ronny Yu; Taiwan-born Ang Lee; and China’s Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou.
Some in this list make crowd-pleasing blockbusters. Some are renowned amateurs, with more than a few Oscars between them. As it turns out, the common thread uniting their disparate styles is producer Philip Lee, who’s worked with them all and lived to tell the tales. Mention that quite a few of these directors have reputations for being rather controlling, and Lee gives a good-natured laugh. “If they are good, why not? If I were them, I would be controlling too.”
His own background may explain his affinity with demanding creative types. Now based in Singapore with his Singaporean wife and three daughters, Lee started his producing career in the 1980s with Hong Kong’s Salon Films, where he worked on Hollywood projects shooting in Asia. He later studied directing in Japan, at Nihon University’s College of Arts, and this has helped him immensely as a producer.
“I can become very good friends with directors. I know how they think; why they feel insecure; when is the best time to talk to them,” he says. “Being a director can be very lonely, and you have to gain their trust. My purpose is to help them make a great movie, which eventually will benefit myself as well. If you’re talking to someone who’s only thinking about money and have no ideas about story and characters, why waste your time?”
Earlier this year, Lee started production company Facing East with business partner and lawyer Markus Barmettler. He is reviving a project – The 19th Step – which was previously announced in 2008 but eventually fell through due to what Lee describes as “stupid reasons”. Paul Haggis will also write and direct a trilogy for Facing East based on US author Paolo Bacigalupi’s young adult novels, beginning with Ship Breaker.
Other upcoming projects include Inversion, a science-fiction piece written by Haggis; and Radegund, a second world war drama directed by the legendary Malick. But first, he has action film Assassin’s Creed opening in Hong Kong on December 22. Unusually for Lee, this is a project based on a popular video game, and its backers have hopes of turning it into a profitable franchise. Beneath the film’s commercial ambitions lie a wealth of potent creative talents who first made their names in the arthouse scene, chief among them Australian director Justin Kurzel, and leading man Michael Fassbender.
Assassin’s Creed is an upcoming, feature-length motion picture, based on the award-winning series of the same name
Assassin’s Creed stars Michael Fassbender
For Lee, producing is an act of creativity. With Barmettler’s expertise in structuring financing deals, Lee can now focus on his passion for developing scripts, nurturing creative relationships, and finding potential investors who share their vision. “I choose projects with my heart. They don’t always look like obvious successes, but as a salesman, I can only sell things that I love,” he explains. “I want to do good movies that can communicate with audiences, that have artistic value as well as commercial value.”
For instance, Iñárritu’s Oscar-winning The Revenant was a tough sell to investors, but Lee believed in Leonardo DiCaprio’s star power as well as the director’s vision. “I believe in fate. I can only tell potential investors sincerely and wholeheartedly about a project. If they buy it, they buy it; if they don’t, they don’t,” he says.
The Revenant starred Leonardo DiCaprio
Another of his favourite projects is 2012’s Cloud Atlas , a trippy science-fiction movie co-directed by the Wachowskis and Tykwer. “I think it’s a great film, but a lot of people didn’t get it. Maybe someday they will. I feel very sorry that the investors didn’t make money, but every single one is still friends with me, because they love the movie and they understand that nothing in life is guaranteed.”
Zhou Xun and Donna Bae in Cloud Atlas
You might say that Lee has settled on a very tough niche as a producer — in an industry currently dominated by tentpole movies usually featuring at least one superhero, he has set his sights on big-budget, non-franchise projects that tell original stories, often helmed by storytellers whose artistic vision may not necessarily be an easy sell. His job is to help strike that fine balance between art and commerce, delivering distinctive movies that still have a shot at box office success.
After all, big-budget spectacle alone is no substitute for sheer talent, and above all, a good script, Lee believes. “You can spend very little on a movie’s budget and still touch an international audience. It’s not undoable. But the chance is slim,” he says. “The size of the audience you want decides the kind of movie you make.”
I CHOOSE PROJECTS WITH MY HEART. THEY DON’T ALWAYS LOOK LIKE OBVIOUS SUCCESSES, BUT AS A SALESMAN, I CAN ONLY SELL THINGS THAT I LOVE
PHILIP LEE
In the late 1990s, Lee became one of the earliest Hong Kong producers to venture into China’s film industry because he was excited by the untapped potential of the Chinese market. Today, this massive market has become a coveted driver of global box office success for many Hollywood players. But for Lee, “China’s film market today is prosperous, but the industry itself is very different. It may be getting worse compared to 10 or 20 years ago – it’s become too complicated, and directors concern themselves with too many things besides telling a good story.” The technology deployed in Chinese movies may have improved by leaps and bounds, “but for storytelling, I still prefer Farewell My Concubine, To Live and The Blue Kite. That sort of movie is much more exciting to me,” he says.
A scene from The Blue Kite, directed by Tian Zhuangzhuang
“In the past few years, movies that have been successful in China have been mostly comedies, which has always been a genre that does not travel easily. These may be entertaining for Chinese audiences, but they are not that appealing for an international audience.”
Indeed, few contemporary Chinese filmmakers have attracted international acclaim the way Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou and Ang Lee did with their arthouse movies in the 1990s. Lee says he has been “looking around, but so far, from the younger generation, there are not that many that I can find”. He does, however, want to bring some attention to more established names who have not yet had their global breakthrough. One of these is Tsui Hark. “I still think he is a very exciting director, and I want to find an opportunity to work with him. We just need the right script.”
Another filmmaker on his wishlist is Wong Kar-wai, who made his English-language debut in 2007 with My Blueberry Nights.
Norah Jones in My Blueberry Nights, directed by Wong Kar-wai
“A lot of people think that’s not a very good movie, but personally I like it. I think it’s very romantic, very sexy. I love all his movies,” Lee says. “Would I have had the courage to work with him before? No. But now, yes. I love a challenge. Are there good directors who are easy to work with? I think that doesn’t exist. All have their difficulties, in different forms. Sometimes you think, life is too short. But on the other hand, if after all the hard work, you can create a movie everyone is proud of, why not?”
continued next post
Continued from previous post
Philip Lee’s road to success
Assassin’s Creed producer Philip Lee. Photo: Jeff Chang
1987 – 1993:
Ran the production department at Salon Films, where he worked on numerous Hollywood films and TV productions
1998:
Featured in the first Kodak Worldwide Emerging Filmmakers’ Showcase at Cannes
1998:
Associate producer for Chen Kaige’s The Emperor And The Assassin
1999 – 2005:
Assistant professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong
2000:
Associate producer for Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2002:
Line producer for Zhang Yimou’s Hero
2006:
Associate producer for Ronny Yu’s Fearless
2008:
Line producer (Hong Kong portion) of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight
2015:
Executive producer of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant, with his producing partner Markus Barmettler
I was invited to a screener of Assassin’s Creed but it’s today in SF at 11 and I have way to much work to finish before the New Year. I’ll just have to pay for it like everyone else. 
But stay tuned. I have an exclusive interview with one of the stars of this film that we’ll be dropping tomorrow. And it’s an astonishing story…
Our latest ezine offering
Best KungFuMagazine.com movie coverage yet! Read Michelle Lin on ASSASSIN’S CREED & the TIGER CLAW ELITE CHAMPIONSHIPS by Gene Ching
Trailers look great. Ive never played the game.
From Michelle Lin’s blog
AC Interviews
Posted on January 2, 2017
The attention was inevitable, but to be frank, I feel weird talking about myself unless the discussion is focused on training. It’s also weird to tell people that I talked about myself. But, at the advice of others, I’m sharing the interviews I recently did.
- “Michelle Lin on Assassin’s Creed & The Tiger Claw Elite Championships” for Kung Fu Magazine.com (December 21, 2016)
This sums up the most commonly asked questions. Gene Ching, Gigi Oh, and the rest of the team – Thank you for the years of friendship and support. I look forward to the TCEC each year. Who would have thought one would lead to this?
- “” for World Journal.com (December 27, 2016)
Boston Edition
- [URL=“https://www.epochtimes.com/b5/16/12/30/n8649061.htm”] (& e-paper version) for Epoch Times (December 30, 2016)
Geek Review: Assassin’s Creed (December 22, 2016)
Not an interview, but my sister found a mention of my character:
“The movie’s other minor saving grace is the unabashed use and display of female stunt actors. Apart from Labed, there is another female Assassin in the mix, Michelle Lin, who plays, well, Lin. It is a possible easter egg that hints at the franchise’s famous female assassin, Shao Jun. Lin is as agile, ferocious, skilled and lethal as her male counterparts if not more so. She’s fast and furious, a joy to watch on screen as she beats her opponents into bloody messes without needing any help from her fellow Assassins.”
How was the premiere?
This semester was especially busy with curriculum restructuring, Shining Link, authoring & producing an instructional video, and end-of-semester testing. I didn’t have time to think about the premiere until a few days prior. I wear training clothes 99% of the time so hair, makeup, dresses, and heels are fairly foreign to me. Sunday – flew to Boston. Monday – bought shoes & dress at the mall on the way to driving to NYC. Tuesday – hair cut in the morning, hair done at Drybar in the afternoon, and makeup done at MAC about 1 hour before the premiere. I ended up really liking my sister’s dress (and it has pockets!) so I wore it instead.
The premiere was at the AMC 25 near Times Square. I went up the elevator and as soon as the doors opened, I saw flashes go off and a sea of photographers yelling (nicely) at the stars on the red carpet. I nearly chickened out but I thought, “I came this far, I have to keep going.” It was but another challenge. And this is what I do.
I walked up and Michael K. saw me first and gave me a hug before putting me between himself and Marion. She remembered me and gave me a hug as well. I waved to the others before we had to stand still again for the photos. There’s an Oscar nominee, Oscar winner, Oscar winner, other award winning professional actors, director, and then there’s me. I heard some photographers ask, “Who’s the Asian girl?” haha. (Ariane came a bit later.)
- New York, NY - 12/13/16 -Twentieth Century Fox and New Regency Productions Present a Special Screening of “Assassins Creed” - Pictured: Cast of Assassins Creed - Photo by: Dave Allocca/Starpix -Location: AMC Empire
– New York, NY – 12/13/16 -Twentieth Century Fox and New Regency Productions Present a Special Screening of “Assassins Creed”
– Pictured: Cast of Assassins Creed
– Photo by: Dave Allocca/Starpix
-Location: AMC Empire
I was nervous as hell and walked off after the photo. I probably would have stayed to do interviews if I had a publicist, but I decided to find my family and enjoy the film. It was better than I had hoped and there was even a surprise! (I can’t say it or it will spoil it for those who haven’t watched it.)
Afterwards, there was a reception where I briefly talked to the director and co-stars and met a group of die hard AC fans and Ubisoft employees. I’m really glad to hear that they loved the film.
Ben – Thank you for getting tickets for my sister and dad. It really means a lot to us.
She was lucky!
Part of it started with the 2015 Tiger Claw Elite Championship, but it actually began years before, due to everyone I’ve met and the events that shaped me into the person I am today. I was not lucky to get this role. I trained for myself. I trained for the tournament. I worked on my audition video. I worked off and on the set before and during production. I’m only saying this to encourage people to keep working for their goals and don’t rely on a break. Never stop working. I don’t care if some people think I was lucky. If luck was all it took, I’d have no reason to be proud. (I hesitate to use the word “proud,” since I see all the areas where I could have done better.)
I’m grateful and proud to have been a part of the “Assassin’s Creed” production but it was one small chapter in my life. On to the next chapter.
I saw this last weekend. I’ve been meaning to post a review. Maybe later today. It’ll give some one else a chance to score that ‘first forum review’. 
First forum review!
This film has a lot going for it for me. Firstly a friend is in it - Michelle Lin (see above). She gets some good facetime and gets to kick ass, but no lines. Secondly, some of it takes place in Grenada and Sevilla, at locations I visited last year. Thirdly it has three of my fav actors, Cotillard, Lyons & Rampling. Fourthly, it has swordfights. I love swordfights. Fifthly it has hallucinations. I love those too.
But it misses in a major way. I really wanted to like this film, in part for Michelle, but also with the rest of the cast. It’s one of those films that makes me mad - so much potential and so much effort, yet it fails. So many videogame movies seem to go this way for me.
While it’s still struggling in the U.S. box office ($50M for a $125M budgeted film, plus scathing reviews - but that means less and less nowadays), it did well overseas and is headed for China on FEB 10. They love videogame movies in China. It’s such a global game now.
JAN 9, 2017 @ 03:00 PM The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets
[URL=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2017/01/09/michael-fassbenders-assassins-creed-kicks-overseas-box-office-butt/#6bdc10881e0e”]Michael Fassbender’s ‘Assassin’s Creed’ Kicks Overseas Box Office Butt
Scott Mendelson , CONTRIBUTOR
I cover the film industry.
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
‘Assassin’s Creed’ image courtesy of Fox
I missed this box office news because it dropped after I closed the computer, but 20th Century Fox had a massive overseas expansion for their video game flick Assassin’s Creed over the weekend. The film opened in a bunch of major markets (Switzerland, Chile, Greece, Israel, Denmark, Poland, Mexico, Russia, etc.) and basically doubled its overseas box office.
The film had around $50 million heading into the weekend (or at least at the end of last weekend) in foreign grosses. It earned another $45m over the weekend and brought its overseas cume to $98m. That includes $9m from Russia, $13m from France, and $7m from the United Kingdom. Including its $49.5m domestic total since opening just before Christmas of last year, the Regency/20th Century Fox offering has now earned $148m worldwide.
Now, to be fair, the Michael Fassbender/Marion Cotillard/Jeremy Irons video game adaptation cost $125 million to produce, so it’s still a long way from home. But by the feeble standards of video game adaptations, it’s almost a success story. With that $49.5m domestic total, it is already the 10th-biggest video game adaptation of all time, passing Warcraft ($47m) as of yesterday.
It’s pretty much done, especially since there will be so much testosterone in the next two weeks (Live by Night, Patriot’s Day, xXx: Return of Xander Cage) before video game fans get their fill via Sony’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter on the 27th. But if it can crawl to $60.129 million, it will pass Resident Evil: Afterlife’s $60.128m domestic total from back in 2010 for seventh.
No, that’s not accounting for inflation and it’s not a guarantee that Assassin’s Creed will make a run at Resident Evil 4’s $236 million overseas total, but we’ll cross that bridge if-and-when. Speaking of overseas, the film’s $148m worldwide total already makes it the 10th-biggest video game movie ever worldwide (I had to find that ranking by hand), just a touch ahead of the $147.7m cume of Resident Evil: Extinction (part 3) from back in 2007.
Even another $20 million in the can gets it to seventh on the list between DreamWorks SKG’s Need for Speed ($203m) and Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.'s Pokemon: The First Movie ($163m back in 1999). Long term estimations are dangerous, but it opens in Brazil and Sweden this weekend and it still has several high-profile debuts like Argentina (Jan. 19), China (Feb. 10) and Japan (March 3) still left to go.
I don’t want to proclaim that Assassin’s Creed is going to hit $300 million worldwide, but the math exists if everything goes right for the next two months. But let’s assume that not everything goes right and perhaps the film peaked last weekend. What we’d still be left with is something akin to The Legend of Tarzan which arguably overperformed in North America ($126m) and around the world ($353m) but still didn’t qualify as a hit due to the $180m production budget.
We got a retweet…sort of.
From the Redheaded Blackbelt of Sohum. Sohum is short for Southern Humbodlt, part of California’s Emerald Triangle - so called for its massive marijuana industry. Miranda is in this area.
WOMAN STUDYING MARTIAL ART IN SOHUM PLAYED CHARACTER IN ASSASSIN’S CREED
January 16, 2017 Kym Kemp 7 comments
Lin from Assassin’s Creed
Did you go see Assassin’s Creed, a movie based on the highly successful video game? If you did, surely you noticed Lin, an assassin and one of the imprisoned test subjects.
Lin casts a wary look in this still from Assassin’s Creed.
The actress playing her, Michelle Lin, is studying martial arts in Southern Humboldt. According to Kung Fu Magazine, “Michelle Lin is a dedicated Kung Fu practitioner, one of the select pupils of Dr. Yang Jwing Ming’s extraordinary YMAA Retreat Center deep in the ancient redwoods of Miranda, California.” She was discovered when video of her performance at the 2015 Women’s Kung Fu Championships came to the Assassin’s Creed casting director’s attention. (See video below.)
China release secured
‘Resident Evil,’ ‘Assassin’s Creed’ Secure Release Dates in China
Patrick Frater
Asia Bureau Chief
COURTESY OF SCREEN GEMS
JANUARY 18, 2017 | 12:06AM PT
Sony’s “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” and Regency Enterprises’ “Assassin’s Creed” have both secured release dates in mainland China. The territory is the world’s second largest theatrical film market.
“Resident Evil” will be released on Feb.17, a week after another actioner “xXx: The Return of Xander Cage” reaches Chinese screens. “Sing also releases in China on Feb. 17, three days after “La La Land” opens on Valentine’s Day.
“Assassins Creed” is released by 20th Century Fox in many territories, but the film was financed in association with Taiwan’s Catchplay and by Hong Kong’s Alpha Pictures. Those deals also gave them rights in Greater China.
“Assassins Creed” has grossed $185 million globally, with only $53 million of that in the domestic North American market.
“Resident Evil” starts its global commercial rollout from Jan. 23 in Japan, with most other territories following on Jan. 26 or 27 and a few more on Feb. 3.
xXx: The Return of Xander Cage
Resident Evil (haven’t really discussed the new one here - should we? I kind of gave up on that franchise long ago… :o )
Assassin’s Creed Movie - Lin fight rehearsal
Tune in tonight - I’m in the War Room again
THREADS
Man at Arms: Art of War - Original Series from EL REY Network
Assassin’s Creed
Another Netflixer
OCTOBER 27, 2020 6:30am PT by Lesley Goldberg
‘Assassin’s Creed’ Live-Action TV Series in the Works at Netflix
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation/Photofest
‘Assassin’s Creed’
Under the deal with Ubisoft, the streamer will also develop other live-action, animated and anime series based on the iconic video game franchise.
Another massive video game franchise is getting the TV treatment.
Netflix and Ubisoft are teaming to bring Assassin’s Creed to television and will develop a slate of properties based on the best-selling game. The first project under the pact is a live-action, genre-bending adaptation of the game. A search is under way for a showrunner for the project, which is currently in the development stages.
The deal for Assassin’s Creed will also see Netflix and Ubisoft mine the game’s trove of stories for other live-action, animated and anime series based on the global franchise.
“For more than 10 years, millions of fans around the world have helped shape the Assassins Creed brand into an iconic franchise,” said Jason Altman, head of Ubisoft Film and Television Los Angeles. Were thrilled to create an Assassins Creed series with Netflix and we look forward to developing the next saga in the Assassins Creed universe."
Assassin’s Creed joins The Witcher and Resident Evil as games-turned-TV franchises at Netflix as the streamer continues to look for IP with an international reach. The Witcher, for example, is already an international hit and the streamer is also prepping a prequel spinoff of the Henry Cavill drama.
“Were excited to partner with Ubisoft and bring to life the rich, multilayered storytelling that Assassins Creed is beloved for, said Peter Friedlander, vp originals at Netflix. From its breathtaking historical worlds and massive global appeal as one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time, we are committed to carefully crafting epic and thrilling entertainment based on this distinct IP and provide a deeper dive for fans and our members around the world to enjoy.”
Since launching in 2007, the Assassin’s Creed series, which comprises 11 games to date, has sold more than 155 million games worldwide and ranks as one of the best-selling series in video game history. The franchise has already been adapted for the big screen, with the 2016 feature starring Michael Fassbender. The film grossed $240 million worldwide (on a budget of $125 million). It has led to a series of books and other merchandising as it became a global phenomenon.
News of a Netflix deal for Assassin’s Creed first surfaced in 2016, when the two companies initially began conversations for a series. A year later, Adi Shankar said he’d be creating the show which he revealed would be an anime series. Nothing became of either project.
For its part, Ubisoft’s film and TV division counts Apple’s Mythic Quest, Netflix feature Tom Clancy’s The Division, Lionsgate’s Rabbids and Screen Gems’ Just Dance, among others.
The news comes as Netflix is in the midst of a restructuring under newly installed global TV head Bela Bajaria, who is increasingly prioritizing originals with global appeal as the streamer seeks further international growth for its subscriber base as U.S. sign-ups have stalled.
News of the Assassin’s Creed TV franchise coming to Netflix comes two months after the streamer closed a months-long deal to bring Capcom’s Resident Evil game to television. It’s also worth noting that Showtime has spent years prepping a live-action TV take on best-selling game Halo.
LESLEY GOLDBERG
Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Snoodit
I’m not clear on what the exact difference is between an animated series and an anime is. Anyone? The web has a lot of differing answers…
Looking forward to watching a new live action series from Creed developers on Netflix. * My understanding of the differences in live action , animated, and anime is : animated is CGI like in RPG video games and anime is CGI enhanced cartoon format. All 3 forms of movie production use live action modeling to create story-board scenes.
[QUOTE=PalmStriker;1319489] Looking forward to watching a new live action series from Creed developers on Netflix. * My understanding of the differences in live action , animated, and anime is : animated is CGI like in RPG video games and anime is CGI enhanced cartoon format. All 3 forms of movie production use live action modeling to create story-board scenes.[/QUOTE]
That may be specific to this case, but anime can also be either 2D or 3D…
PalmStriker & YinOrYan
Do you think anime has to be of Japanese origin? If not, what are some non-Japanese animes?
hey, Gene! YinOrYan is correct about the nature of anime. Anime can be more like manga or comics in general, when things start looking very dimensional or optic the art imagery will pass into the perimeters of a different visual format. To answer your question about other people into producing Anime besides the Japanese, I’m not sure, these days as I haven’t been watching out for the type: action/adventure that I prefer, although I recently binge-watched an anime series that I really liked.* I’ll look back in the Netflix library and post it when I find it. When my son was young we would watch a good bit of anime (rent to watch at home, back then). The stuff I am usually drawn to is usually produced by Japanese animators but not necessarily, with cast, storyline or scenery in an Asian environment. If it is, I like that also.