Michael Fassbender plays multiple roles in the upcoming Assassin’s Creed, both onscreen and behind the scenes as it were. The Oscar-nominee is producing the video game adaptation and helped to recruit several of his Macbeth collaborators to work on the Ubisoft Motion Pictures project – including Marion Cotillard, his costar in the Shakespeare play adaptation, along with director Justin Kurzel, screenwriter Michael Lesslie, and cinematographer Adam Arkapaw.
Based on their work together on Macbeth, it seems fair to assume the historical settings and action in Assassin’s Creed – which is set partly in 15th century Spain – are going to be quite impressively staged and executed on the big screen. It’s all the more fitting, seeing as the film’s inspiration is a video game series where assassins perform elaborate parkour stunts and killing maneuvers (though Fassbender will be assisted by stunt people and CGI in the movie in that respect, no doubt).
Empire has debuted a fresh Assassin’s Creed image that shows Fassbender in character as Aguilar: the highly-skilled assassin in 15th century Spain who belongs to an order of deadly assassins. Furthermore, the site has revealed an image of Fassbender in the film as Callum Lynch, the modern-day descendant of Aguilar who is forced to relive the memories of his ancestor – via a virtual reality machine that reads its subject’s genetic memory (known as the Animus), as was developed and marketed by the powerful and sinister Abstergo Industries. Abstergo, for those unaware, is run by the Templars, a group that has long waged a secret war against the Assassins in the Assassin’s Creed mythology.
You can check out those Assassin’s Creed images, below:
Aesthetically, the present-day sequences in Assassin’s Creed should look strikingly different than the historical portions of the film in terms of production design and (to a lesser degree) cinematography, judging by the screenshots and photos of the Abstergo Industries set that have been released to date. It’s encouraging to see too, as that indicates the movie may play out like a true mash-up of science-fiction and period action/adventure genre tropes, similar to the source video games (which, as it were, will maintain continuity with the live-action movie adaptation too).
Jeremy Irons is playing Abstergo CEO Alan Rikkin, as was confirmed by the Assassin’s Creed viral marketing campaign recently. In addition, the remainder of the film’s cast includes such noteworthy players as Brendan Gleeson (In the Heart of the Sea), Michael Kenneth Williams (Boardwalk Empire), and Ariane Labed (The Lobster) in key supporting roles. We may get to see more of the movie’s cast members in costume in the foreseeable future too, when the first Assassin’s Creed trailer drops – and who knows, if we’re lucky we might even see Fassbender as Aguilar perform a “Leap of Faith,” to boot.
NEXT: Assassin’s Creed Trailer to Debut with Batman v Superman?
Assassin’s Creed opens in U.S. theaters on December 21st, 2016.
