As videogames get more cinematic, it only makes sense that big-screen adaptations continue to percolate in Hollywood, and right now Ubisoft is leading the way with star-driven features. 2012 saw them get both "Assassin's Creed" and "Splinter Cell" off the ground, with Michael Fassbender and Tom Hardy in the lead roles respectively. Now another big title from Ubisoft is going to be making the rounds to studios.
The LA Times recently caught up with Jean-Julien Baronnet, chief executive of Ubisoft Motion Pictures unit, and in the midst of their profile it's revealed that a pitch is being developed to bring "Ghost Recon" to the multiplex. Like "Splinter Cell," the game is a Tom Clancy-branded property, also centering on a military ops unit, so we'll be curious to see how they differentiate the two series that will seem somewhat similar to audiences at large. However, as gamers likely know, "Ghost Recon" has been given the live-action treatment already.
Last spring, a 20-minute short "Ghost Recon: Alpha" — produced by Ridley Scott's RSA and directed by Francois Alaux and Herve de Crecy ("Logorama") — was released as a prequel of sorts for the latest franchise entry, "Ghost Recon: Future Soldier." We'd wager that will be part of the Ubisoft pitch to show studios how the property might look as a feature.
Given how the other games have developed, it's clear Ubisoft wants these to be big, tentpole-sized representations of the game, and we reckon that will be the path "Ghost Recon" takes. But the gamemaker also knows when to scale back. Their lighter "Rabbids" is headed to Nickelodeon as animated fare, with an entirely different demographic for them to seize upon. Can Ubisoft succeed where so many other gamemakers have failed? We'll soon see… [via JoBlo]