Adi Shankar, showrunner for Netflix’s Castlevania animated series, is developing an anime series for the hit video game IP Assassin’s Creed. It’s clear publisher and developer Ubisoft is taking the reputation and quality of its Assassin’s Creed flagship brand a lot more seriously as of late.

First, Ubisoft took a step back on the rushed development cycle of their previously annualized video game release schedule to refocus and deliver something special with this fall’s Assassin’s Creed: Origins earned much positive buzz at E3 2017. And after the critical and financial failure of 2016’s Assassin’s Creed film – the first feature-length project to come from the young Ubisoft Motion Pictures division – they’re doing something more exciting in their next AC venture. Ubisoft is working with Shankar on an original animated series set within the deep lore of the Assassin’s Creed universe.

Shankar of course, known for exec producing hit films including The Grey, Dredd, and Lone Survivor, and making the awesome shorts The Punisher: Dirty Laundry, Venom: Truth in Journalism, and Power/Rangers, specializes in pushing the R-rated aesthetic and in rebooting in satirical, left of center kind of way. More important for gamers and fans of the Assassin’s Creed property, is that Shankar is a fan of the material and a gamer himself, meaning Ubisoft is looking outside of the traditional Hollywood machine which failed on the big budget live-action film, and is trusting a a rebellious millennial with Assassin’s Creed, someone who’s succeeded in fanfare and original material.

As someone who’s been championing the idea for nearly a decade myself that video game properties like Assassin’s Creed absolutely can make the video game adaptation genre legitimate, reading this on Adi Shankar’s Facebook page puts a smile on my face:

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. If anyone tells you not to follow your passion in life they are wrong.

The first season of Shankar’s Castlevania releases THIS WEEK on Netflix July 7, 2017 so that will be your first taste of the showrunner’s work in adapting a beloved video game property. Assassin’s Creed is no stranger to animation and Ubisoft’s own UbiWorkshop previously made the animated shorts Assassin’s Creed: Ascendance and Assassin’s Creed: Embers.



ScreenRant