Ubisoft Creates Digital Film Studio

Posted on February 28, 2007

The International Herald Tribune reports that game developer Ubisoft is opening its own digital cinema studio.

The studio will first be used to create a short film starring Altair, a hero of an upcoming Ubisoft game.

Altair, a stealthy assassin with a preference for crossbows and retractable stilettos, is already a hero of his own popular video game, but soon he will leap this genre like he jumps giant chasms.
Ubisoft, the French developer of games like "Prince of Persia" and "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell," is opening a digital cinema studio in Montreal, and its first production will be an eight-minute film based on the game "Assassin's Creed," starring Altair.
"We may consider doing longer-form films or television sometime in the future," said Mary Beth Hensen, a spokeswoman for Ubisoft, which is based in Montreuil, a suburb of Paris. "We're basically putting to work the existing creativity of our game developers as well as adding a more traditional cinematic slant to our roster."

Ubisoft says they built the studio to maintain control of their characters and game universes. The first short film will be distributed online.

"We want our universe to be respected," said Emmanuel Carre, a company spokesman. "Too often, the movies made from video games don't respect the characters. The producers want to make a mainstream movie, but if the fans decide it's not good, the movie won't be a success. With our new studio, the same people making the games will be working closely with the people making the films." The company already has made alliances with Hollywood, creating games like "Peter Jackson's King Kong" and selling rights to the Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer to make a movie inspired by its medieval game "Prince of Persia."
Ubisoft's first short film will appear this year with the ambition of circulating it through Web sites, iPods and video game consoles like Microsoft's X-box Live, according to Carre, who said that for the moment the company was not looking to traditional movie theaters for distribution.

Altair is the hero of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed game which takes place during the Crusades.

GAMES