If you’re a video game fan, you’re in an amazing era. There was a time when movies and TV shows based on the genre we love were unwatchable. Of course, there were the outliers like the first Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil. However, the standards were projects like 1993’s Super Mario Bros. and 1994’s Street Fighter (and 2009’s). Now, you have award-winning shows like The Last of Us and billion-dollar movie franchises like Super Mario Bros. (2023) and Sonic the Hedgehog.
One of the reasons these projects are getting better is that creators are learning from past mistakes. Sometimes the change is something as simple as hiring people from the creative team from the source material to write or consult. In this case, you have Netflix taking Ubisoft's Assassin’s Creed franchise and adapting it into a series instead of a movie.
The Assassin’s Creed project was announced almost five years ago, but, according to Variety, the live-action series is finally moving forward on Netflix. David Wiener (Fear of the Walking Dead) and Roberto Patino (DMZ) are noted as the show’s creators, executive producers, and showrunners. While all of this is good news, the part that should be highlighted is that this won’t be a movie.
The first Assassin’s Creed game was released in 2007, with the first film (starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard) debuting in 2016. The dates are important because it's easy to see that a movie was a bad idea because each game has a lot of content. The creators may have thought that this could have become a popular franchise with the movies going on as long as the games were released (maybe longer). Nevertheless, it should have been clear that this concept just works better as a TV show.
In the defense of the people involved with 2016's Assassin's Creed, no one would have trusted it to succeed as a live-action program. Video game-inspired TV shows usually only work in an animated format. Even today, the highest-rated shows like Arcane, Castlevania, and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners are all animated. They also have one other thing in common. They’re all on Netflix. Which isn’t always a good thing.
Anybody familiar with Netflix will tell you that being on that streaming service is a gift and a curse. On one hand, your project will be on one of the premier streaming platforms. On the other hand, whether the show is popular or not, there’s a high chance it’ll get cancelled. Examples of this are shows like Warrior Nun, Kaos, Dead Boy Detectives, and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
Hopefully, Netflix sees the value in an Assassin’s Creed franchise. The video games are popular, but it’s more than that. Each game has different eras, settings, and characters, while a connection to each character and story remains. Keeping things fresh, but tied into the story, will keep people tuning in and wanting to know what's next. Plus, the purchase of Ubisoft's games will go up thanks to people's interest in the story and the characters.
It will be a while before the show comes out, so we’ll have to wait and see what Roberto Patino and David Wiener come up with. Stay tuned to Bam Smack Pow to find out what that is.
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