Assassin's Creed film star on game adaptions: "someone's got to do it right once"

Video game movies are generally not well received, but Michael Fassbender feels the "odds are stacked" in the Assassin's Creed film's favor.

Assassin's Creed film star on game adaptions: "someone's got to do it right once"

Speaking alongside director Justin Kurzel in a Gamespot interview, Fassbender said creating a movie based on the Assassin's Creed IP didn't feel "really risky, considering somebody has got to do it right once."

"What elevated it above other action-adventure fantasy films was the idea of DNA memories," he said. "It seems like a very plausible scientific theory, that we carry around in us the knowledge of our ancestors. Certain things like when you enter a room and it's a dangerous one, the temperature drops and you feel something physically. That comes from, perhaps, knowledge from ancestors that's in our DNA.

"I thought that was really something that would take the audience on a more immersive journey."

He said became more interested in playing the roles of Callum Lynch and his 15th-century Spanish ancestor Aquilar after Ubisoft explained the premise of the franchise.

Director Kurzel said he approached the Assassin's Creed project as a film first, but it was still a challenge turning a game into a "120-minute story."

"Assassin's Creed is very complex in terms of the Animus, the present-day world, and how that relates to the period world," he told Gamespot. "You're having to invent a story to take all those different elements of the game and also stay faithful to what fans expect. It is a really big challenge.

"I respect the game and have spent a lot of time with the game but at a certain point you have to start looking at this as a film and how it works as one."

As far as the perception of movies based on video games being box office poison, Kurzel likened the sentiment to Macbeth - the subject of his last film.

"Macbeth has been done a thousand times. It has massive baggage like anything else. You have to just embrace it," he said. "You have to just go with it. There's something about Assassin's Creed that feels very real and different from other games.

"That makes it feel more tangible as a piece of cinema."

Hopefully, the odds are indeed stacked in their favor for this one. We'll have to wait and see.

The first trailer for Assassin's Creed debuted last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live and the film is slated for a theatrical release on December 21.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around why the Kanye tune I Am A God was chosen for the movie trailer.