Despite a recent spate of successful games-to-screen transitions—such as Fallout, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and Arcane—publisher Ubisoft continues its endless run of cinematic misfortune. The latest blow comes in the form of the long-planned Splinter Cell movie, which is now not going to happen.
When it comes to movies, Ubisoft’s list of successes is one film long: 2021’s deeply daft and very fun Werewolves Within. Before that, you’ve got the critically demolished Assassin’s Creed and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, preceded by Uwe Boll’s monstrously dreadful Far Cry in 2008. (To be fair, Prince of Persia at least squeaked a profit, albeit not enough to prevent planned sequels getting cancelled.) Scattered amongst them are many promised projects that never quite seem to reach our eyes.
One of those is now known to be Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, which was first confirmed as in development in 2012. Set to star Tom Hardy (Mad Max) as ultra-spy Sam Fisher, be written by Eric Warren Singer (Top Gun: Maverick), and later attached to director Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow), it was announced at the same time as the Michael Fassbender-starring Assassin’s Creed, although only one of them ever made it to screen. The wrong one? We shall never know.
According to The Direct, producer Basil Iwanyk—while on some John Wick-related promotion—said that the movie is “now dead.”
“That movie would have been awesome,” the Expendables producer told the site. “Just couldn’t get it right, script-wise, budget-wise. But it was going to be great.” Mmm-hmm.
Admittedly, Clancy’s Splinter Cell conceit of a black-ops agent doing generic spy stuff should have been a fairly easy lift, it didn’t necessarily have to be dreadful. But in a producer’s imagination, it could have been perfection. “It was going to be hardcore and awesome,” he continued.
Ubisoft has, in fact, created a whole division devoted to the process of converting its IPs to non-interactive screens, called Ubisoft Film & Television. It was one of the production companies behind that atrocious Assassin’s Creed movie, and indeed Werewolves Within, but is probably most successful with the Apple+ TV series Mythic Quest, which just announced a new season and a spin-off.
The company also has just about every Ubisoft franchise you can think of in some stage of production, including Far Cry and Splinter Cell animated series for Netflix, a Watch Dogs movie (with Sony) that is allegedly in production now, and…oh gawd…a Just Dance “feature film,” although that was announced in 2019, and further information has not been forthcoming. There are also claims of Ghost Recon (Warner), and The Division and Beyond Good & Evil (both Netflix) at least optioned.
So sorry to those who were looking forward to one day seeing Tom Hardy as Sam Fisher. However, there’s compensation in the form of the upcoming Netflix animation Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, which has proof of life and everything.
Cancelling things is, of course, nothing new to Ubisoft, which makes a habit of killing many projects, while allowing vaporware dreams like Beyond Good & Evil 2 to continue demolishing money.
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