Based on the blockbuster video game series from Ubisoft, Assassin’s Creed is a world-spanning tale of one man, Cal Lynch (Michael Fassbender). Lynch finds himself at the centre of an ancient battle between two powerful sects... only by harnessing the memories of his ancestor, which are contained within his own DNA, can he end the conflict and claim his own redemption. The movie is brought to the big screen by director Justin Kurzel.
Fassbender, who has fast emerged as one of the world’s most accomplished and popular actors, immediately saw the potential in a new adaptation of the game. “The Assassin’s Creed universe seemed to lend itself very nicely to a cinematic experience,” he says.
With his experience portraying the powerful mutant Magneto in films, including X- Men: Days of Future Past, Fassbender uniquely understood the storytelling possibilities afforded by the game’s time-bending, sci-fi inflected premise and he was excited by the opportunity to amplify the already expansive world of Assassin’s Creed for the big screen.
“When I met up with the guys from Ubisoft and started to explain this whole world and the idea of DNA memory, it struck me as a very feasible scientific theory,” Fassbender says. “I thought about the possibility of it being this cinematic experience. We’re approaching it as a feature film as opposed to a videogame.”
The film co-stars Marion Cottilard, reteaming with Fassbender and Kurzel following the trio’s powerful collaboration in Kurzel’s 2015 version of Macbeth.
It also proved to be a very elaborate playground for stuntman Damian Walters, given the many views garnered online by the video of him parkouring over Malta
Cotillard found the opportunity to reteam with Kurzel and Fassbender irresistible. “Confidence is one of the most important things that I look for in a director,” says the actress. “I suspected that I would trust Justin entirely when I first spoke to him on the phone before we did Macbeth.
“And I knew that Michael was an amazing and committed actor. The experience that we had on Macbeth was very intense and really created a very special relationship. Arriving on a set where you know you can trust a 100 per cent your partner and your director is something that is very strong. And going to work together again on another project, and a totally different project, was very exciting.”
One of the greatest attractions of the Assassin’s Creed franchise has been its clever marriage of real historical figures and events – the Assassins and the Templars are both real organisations of course – with its element of heightened fantasy.
Producer Patrick Crowley explains that the meticulous attention to historical detail dedicated to Assassin’s Creed the game was also given to the film version. “It forced us to do this great job in terms of costumes, in terms of weapons and in terms of fighting styles,” he says.
The biggest challenge of the production was recreating the world of 15th Century Spain that forms the backdrops for Cal’s regressions into Aguilar’s memories.
Assassin’s Creed will, of course, be of interest not only to Maltese video-gaming buffs, but to audiences as a whole, seeing that large parts of it were filmed here (apart from Spain and the UK).
Malta was chosen for its historical verisimilitude as well as its talented local crews and production infrastructure. “We went to Malta for four weeks of filming and built some very big sets there,” Crowley says. “We used existing fortresses – Malta has more fortresses than any place I’ve ever been in – and some of their downtown areas, which are period authentic for what it is that we were interested in. It’s a Unesco world heritage site, so you get some fantastic production value.”
It clearly also proved to be a very elaborate playground for stuntman Damian Walters, given the many views garnered online by the video of him parkouring over Malta (including some scarily vertiginous leaps down Mosta Dome)… which is an excellent pointer to what kind of action Assassin’s Creed is offering its audiences in its ambitious transition to the big screen.