The creator of the new Castlevania anime that will be aired of Netflix, Adi Shankar, has announced that he is also teaming up with Ubisoft to work on an Assassin’s Creed anime, according to his official Facebook page.
“I’m happy to let you guys know that I’ve selected my next project! I played the first edition of Assassin’s Creed the year I moved to Los Angeles to pursue my dream. At that moment I knew absolutely no one in the industry and could never have imagined that one day Ubisoft would ask me to take the world of Assassin’s Creed and create an original story set in it as an anime series,” said Shankar. “If anyone tells you not to follow your passion in life they are wrong.”
Ubisoft and Netflix began discussing creating shows from their game franchises back in November, according to Reuters. Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft’s CEO, also told reporters that they wanted to remain independent despite financial pressure from French company Vivendi (Vivendi was buying up a lot of shares in Ubisoft’s stock in an attempt to take over the company). Maybe a Netflix series can show people how important it is to keep Ubisoft independent to keep creative control over its content.
Netflix seems to be focusing on bringing different adaptations of famous video game franchises to their platform, which has close to 100 million subscribers according to CNN Money.
The Assassin’s Creed Netflix adaptation was also teased earlier this year during an AMA on reddit with Head of Content for Assassin’s Creed Aymar Azaizia. In response to a fan asking about a “TV Show” for Assassin’s Creed he said he couldn’t reveal any more information about the project, but it is currently in the works.
“It’s like the movie guys, we will take our time, to get sure we deliver something we can be proud of, but if you wander if it’s on our plan… YES,” said Azaizia.
Ubisoft already has experience with creating television shows; creating Rabbids Invasion for television back in 2013, according to VG24/7. Rabbids Invasion ran for four years and aired on Nickelodeon, France 3 and Nicktoons. The show received mixed ratings, though, and currently has a 5.4 out of 10 stars on IMDb.
The latest Assassin’s Creed adaptation, an Assassin’s Creed movie, didn’t do well in ratings but did gross over $240 million, according to The Numbers. It received an 18 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and a 5.9 out of 10 on IMDb. Not exactly the stellar ratings Ubisoft was looking for, since they did put $125 million for the movie’s budget.
“I suppose you could say the film made me slightly more likely to play one of the games, but only because I’d do just about anything before I saw this movie again,” said Slate reviewer Jonathan L. Fischer about the Assassin’s Creed movie. The full review can be found here.
The next installment of the Assassin’s Creed franchise will be Assassin’s Creed Origins which will be released in October of this year. It takes place in Egypt and features the beginning of the Assassins and Templars fight against each other. New features of the game include a new combat system and a new mapping system, along with naval battles and the ability to raid tombs.
Since Ubisoft has recently found a director for the Assassin’s Creed Netflix adaptation, developing the new series will probably get started very soon. Fans of the Assassin’s Creed series can start getting excited, since the Castlevania Netflix adaptation seems to be in pretty good shape. It isn’t known which Assassin’s Creed game the series will take inspiration from. Shankar’s Castlevania Netflix adaptation will be airing on July 7 of this year.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons.
