In early May Ubisoft games announced they were creating their own film studio: Ubisoft Motion Pictures. To be totally correct it won't be a fully fledged movie studio but more of a production company but there will be an awful lot of potential in this new kid on the block.
Ubisoft are responsible for games such as Assasins Creed, Prince of Persia (already a motion picture released by Disney), Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and those wonderful but annoying Raving Rabbids. Although the movie version of Prince of Persia was classed as a flop, it did bring in over £350 million for Disney but that wasn't enough profit for them from a £200 million budget, and to date they have no plans for a sequel, which is a shame because I actually really enjoyed the film and thought it was a great Arabian romp in the same vein as the Pirates trilogy. So will Ubisoft release a sequel through another studio? Who knows, but I hope so. There is a lot of life in the characters and a lot more story to tell.
More importantly though is whether Ubisoft will be able to make any successful films based on video games at all. In the last decade there have some reasonable adaptations such as Tomb Raider and Resident Evil, but along the way there have been some stinkers such as Hitman, Tekken and Dead or Alive (DOA), so Ubisoft have their work cut out if they want to be taken seriously.
So what should they attempt first? Well, the most obvious title in my view would be a movie adaptation of one of the stand out PS3 release titles, Assassins Creed. The series spawned multiple sequels for various consoles and has sold millions worldwide. There was also a mini movie/series that only had an official release in France and Canada. Called Assassins Creed: Lineage the film is a prequel to the second game and can be viewed on YouTube.
The film actually has a very polished and professional look as you will see from the video so if Ubisoft can create this from a very modest budget I look forward to seeing what they can do with a few dollars more !
