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Assassin's Creed Movie Producer's New Film Studio Will Focus On Video Game Adaptations
Jean-Julien Baronnet recently departed his position of CEO at Ubisoft Motion Pictures after working on the Assassin's Creed adaptation. His next venture is a studio that will work on more movies based on games.
Marla Studios, named after Baronnet's daughters, will specialize in adapting the stories of popular games for a wider Hollywood audience. In an exclusive interview with Variety, he explained why he thinks so many video game movies have failed because they try to copy the story beat for beat without understanding the change in audience. Baronnet will head Marla Studios and work directly with video game developers to manage their IPs and come up the best idea for a movie. No partner companies have been announced yet.
Assassin's Creed opens on December 21, starring Micheal Fassbender and Marion Cotillard. Before shutting down, Ubisoft Motion Pictures also worked on an idea for a Splinter Cell movie, potentially starring Tom Hardy.
[Source: Variety]
Our Take
Baronnet's comments about imagining a new story rather than copying the original are encouraging. It seems that Assassin's Creed is already following this mindset, but the jury is still out until the film opens. I personally have faith in it and hope to see more successful video game movies. Warcraft wasn't a complete trainwreck, but there are better stories out there primed for adaptation. I think this is a great time to revisit an old feature on how to make the Assassin's Creed movie not suck.
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