Can Michael Fassbender's Assassin's Creed save the video game movie?

The history of video game-to-film adaptations is littered with the rotting corpses of productions featuring half-arsed storylines, C-grade casting and a distinctly regrettable absence of directorial vision. The famously appalling German director Uwe Boll has made a living from trotting out cheap and nasty films, which usually make their money back thanks to gamers who are fooled into thinking they are about to re-experience their greatest moments spent with a PlayStation or Xbox on the big screen.

The reality is usually rather different. Movies and video games operate under a completely different set of rules, and quite often the extended non-playable sequences in games which most resemble traditional film narrative are the bits gamers click through in boredom after the first dozen times of viewing. Only the Resident Evil movies have achieved successful franchise status, and only then without any particular degree of critical traction, and largely because zombie films will always have their place in the heart of a certain type of filmgoer.

Macbeth review: Fassbender and Cotillard full of sound and fury in significant Shakespeare adaptation

The Highlands are recast as a glowing outback in this extremely stylish and sometimes inspired new version by the director of Snowtown

Read more

There is a chance, however, that the trend is changing. The upcoming World of Warcraft movie, Warcraft – with the much-buzzed-about director of Moon and Source Code, Duncan Jones, in the hot-seat – has been in development for so long that it is either going to be the greatest fantasy epic since The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, or the worst example of the form since Eragon. We’ll find out in June 2016.

And now comes Michael Fassbender in Assassin’s Creed, based on the hugely popular video game in which players go on missions to take down targets in various exotic locations throughout history, – the first image for which has just hit the web. Fassbender, who plays a character named Callum Lynch not seen in the games, is shown in hooded, lightly armoured garb, his weapons of choice ready to slip from beneath his sleeves to be plunged into the nearest unfortunate public figure or political rival.

Assassin’s Creed was something of a successor to video game manufacturer Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia series, which filmgoers may remember from the ill-fated 2010 big screen adaptation, which was rubbish despite starring decent actors Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Kingsley and Gemma Arterton, and featuring direction from no less a figure than Mike Newell. So in a way, we have been here before.

But perhaps, with Fassbender on board as a co-producer, we’re entitled to hold out a little hope for Assassin’s Creed. The Irishman isn’t known for taking on duds, and has brought his Macbeth team of director Justin Kurzel and co-star Marion Cotillard along for the ride. Kurzel, the Australian film-maker who also gave us 2011’s harrowing Snowtown, is working from a screenplay by Exodus: Gods and Kings’ Bill Collage and Adam Cooper, with Macbeth’s Michael Lesslie. The supporting cast looks good too, with Boardwalk Empire’s Michael K Williams the key player.

Lynch, like his video game predecessors, is believed to be a modern day man who is able to experience the adventures of his ancestors, in this case those living in 15th-century Spain during the famous religious Inquisition. As well as playing his ancestor, Aguilar, the storyline will see Fassbender, with all new martial arts skills picked up from his time spent rampaging through the past, taking on the nefarious Knights Templar in the 21st century.