Yesterday, Ubisoft, the French publisher of the Assassin's Creed video games, did a pretty strange thing. Their European leader, Alain Corre, said that they were "not going to earn a lot of money from it" from the Assassin's Creed movie. It's not every day that a studio says something like this about one of their major movie releases, and people began to think that something funny was going on. People inferred that Corre meant that the movie wouldn't be successful (i.e. makes lots of money at the box office), showing that they didn't have much faith in the Michael Fassbender starring film. Now Ubisoft is doing a bit of backtracking and clarifying Corre's comments.
The original story was published by MCV, who had interviewed Alain Corre about the upcoming film. Ubisoft created a production company with the mission of adapting several of its video game properties into films. The purpose of this was to "put this franchise in front of a lot more people who, maybe, will then pick up future Assassin's Creed games," said Corre. He also explicitly said they weren't going to earn much money from it. Ubisoft later got in contact with MCV and clarified what Corre meant; they aren't just making flimsy movies in order to sell games; the mission is still to create a high-quality product.
Ubisoft's core vision is to create top quality entertainment and experiences. For the Assassin's Creed film, we have worked closely with our partners at New Regency and 20th Century Fox as well as the talented cast and production team from the very beginning to ensure we deliver a quality experience to ours fans. We strongly believe the Assassin's Creed brand has this cross-over appeal that will please both video games fans and moviegoers.
Ubisoft is trying to make it clear that Assassin's Creed isn't something they slapped together. It's a film made by lots of people who are trying hard to make the first great video game movie. Yes, they want to sell a lot more video games from a franchise that has seen some dwindling quality over the years, but that doesn't mean the movie will be bad. This will hopefully be a relief to some fans who were anticipating the movie and were put off by Alain Corre's comment.
Ubisoft's comment doesn't really address how they don't expect to earn money from the film, but that might have been blown out of proportion by some. 20th Century Fox more than likely took the bulk of the budget, and therefore they will see the most returns from the movie. Ubisoft won't get that much in comparison, but they will have the Assassin's Creed brand thrown on every bus and bench they can find. At the end of the day, the games are where they make the big bucks.
Assassin's Creed is directed by Justin Kurzel and stars Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, and Michael K. Williams. The film is scheduled to hit theaters on December 21, 2016.
