Hollywood seems hell-bent on continuing to try and build film franchises out of video game properties. While recent attempts are having a tough time, and more are on the way, some of the titles rumored for the big screen treatment have been MIA for quite some time. However, the game studio behind the upcoming Assassin's Creed film has now reassured us that a film based on the Watch_Dogs (soon to be) series is still on its way.
Last week, during the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo video game conference, developer Ubisoft took some time out of their press briefing to stop talking about games, and start talking about movies. With the Assassin's Creed movie scheduled for release this December, the studio will take its first step into the motion picture industry. However, it looks like they won't be waiting to see if it's a hit before moving forward on other properties. As Gameinformer reported, Ubisoft has confirmed that a Watch_Dogs movie is still in development.
Ubisoft first began buying domain names associated with a Watch_Dogs film back in 2012, after the first game had been announced, but before it was ever released. The game wouldn't see the light of day until 2014. While the title was highly anticipated, the final release was met with criticism as the graphical quality was not at the level that had been previously displayed, and the games' hero was little more than "grim protagonist #452." Watch_Dogs 2 was officially announced earlier this year and will be released this November, with a new playable character.
The Watch_Dogs games create open world environments based on real US cities (Chicago in the first game, San Francisco in the sequel) which use a widespread surveillance system called CtOS, ostensibly to help prevent crime. The primary game mechanics are based around hacking the system in order to use it for your reasons. A significant amount of gunplay and carjacking are also involved.
The basic idea of a movie based around a vigilante hacker using his skills to prevent a crime to solve some sort of mystery isn't a bad one on its face, it's not even a new plot among recent films. This could work for or against a Watch_Dogs movie. The fact that the premise isn't new means it should be easy enough for a screenwriter, or an audience, to wrap their head around. Here, the challenge would likely be doing enough to differentiate the movie so it felt like part of the Watch_Dogs universe, and not simply a generic hacker movie.
At this point, we have no real idea what a Watch_Dogs movie would actually be about. We'd guess they'd follow the same formula they started with Assassin's Creed, creating original characters and plots for the movie, and simply giving them access to the tool box that the games also use. Are you excited by the prospect of a Watch_Dogs movie?
