Assassin’s Creed movie to join holiday rush

The upcoming movie adaptation of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed is set to premiere on December 21, 2016 in the United States, just in time for the holiday season. While it will be competing against other titles Rogue One, the first spinoff for the Star Wars franchise, and The Space between us for ticket sales, its take on the video game franchise would surely draw the audience it needs.

Directed by Justin Kurzel (MacBeth), it stars Michael Fassbender (X Men: Apocalypse) and Marion Cotillard (Allied), with the former also producing the film. The movie's script is headed by Scott Frank (Get Shorty), which will also have Michael K Williams (The Wire) and Jeremy Irons (Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice) as part of the cast. ScreenRant reports that Ubisoft is also part of the endeavor, creating its own production company, Ubisoft Motion Pictures, for the said project.

Set in the in-game universe of Assassin's Creed, the movie will have all-new characters made specifically for the film. Fassbender plays as Callum Lynch, a criminal living at the present time, who discovers that his ancestor was a part of a secret Assassin group. Through the use of Abstergo Industries' "Animus", he is able to go relive the life and adventures of Aguilar de Nehra (also played by Fassbender) in 15^th century Spain. Thing is, Abstergo is a cover for the Knights Templar, the antagonists of the story, and is using Lynch to extract information and memories from his ancestor to locate the "Pieces of Eden".

Lynch, with his continuous exposure to the life of Nehra, retains some of his knowledge, skills and abilities, and would be able to use those in the present. This mechanic is familiar to players of the games as "The Bleeding Effect", which certainly promises a lot of adrenaline-pumping action sequences for the film, as he faces off with the Knights Templar both in the past and at the present.

DigitalSpy also shares that Lynch might also have access to "Eagle Vision". This neat feature allows the user to have a blue-and-white view, and it highlights certain aspects of the environment, like foot prints or hiding enemies. This is hinted by the first movie poster released, which features an eagle. The movie also promises to have some other staples of the video game series, like the costumes, the wrist-blades, the fast-flowing parkour movement, and the aforementioned "Pieces of Eden", to name a few.

The recent trailers released do show a lot of potential, and hopefully the movie could break the curse for movie adaptations of video games, which many have tried, but still waiting to be broken.