While we’d previously heard that anAssassin’s Creedlive-action TV show was being planned, an Assassin’s Creed Animated Series is also now officially in the works. Producer Adi Shankar (The Grey,Dredd) has announced that his next project is going to be ananime-style seriesbased on the very successful Ubisoft video game franchise. This is going to be quite a bit different than the approach to the live-actionAssassin’s Creedmovie and, based on the reception to the movie, that may be a very good thing.
Adi Shankartook to his personal Facebook page to make the announcement that theAssassin’s Creedanime is going to be his next project. Back in May, Shankar, who is known for doing high-budget fan films likePunisher: Dirty LaundryandPower/Rangers, made it clear that he is going to be focusing more on animation in the future, so this falls right in line with those plans. Details on the project are a bit scarce right now, but here’s what he had to say about it.
“I’m happy to let you guys know that I’ve selected my next project! I played the first edition ofAssassin’s Creedthe year I moved to Los Angeles to pursue my dream. At that moment I knew absolutely no one in the industry and could never have imagined that one day Ubisoft would ask me to take the world of Assassin’s Creed and create an original story set in it as an anime series. If anyone tells you not to follow your passion in life they are wrong.”
This isn’t the first we’ve heard about anAssassin’s CreedTV series, but this may not be what many of us were expecting. Back in March, Aymar Azaizia, Head of Content forAssassin’s Creedat Ubisoft, did a Reddit AMA and teased that a TV project was in the works. Not only that, but last year Ubisoft CEOYves Guillemotsaid that the company was in talks with Netflix for a TV series, but didn’t dish out any additional details at that time. SinceAdi Shankar serves as the showrunnerfor the upcomingCastlevania animated seriesthat drops on Netflix July 7, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to think thatNetflixcould be where this project finds a home. Though, it sounds like their may be both a live-action and animated series. That isn’t quite clear yet how this will shake out.
TheAssassin’s Creedmovie didn’t do what Ubisoft was hoping it would, as the movie only made $240 million worldwide at the box office, working from a steep $125 million production budget. Not to mention that the movie was thrashed by critics, currently holding a 17 percent approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite that, the studio has said that plans for a sequel are in the works. It doesn’t seem likely that Michael Fassbender will return ifAssassin’s Creed 2does actually happen, though. Maybe they can use thisAssassin’s Creedanime as sort of a springboard to help build up some good faith? We’ll see, but this sounds like something that may be much more in line with what fans were hoping that the movie could do.
