Isn’t this quite the pleasant surprise?

After making his name in such great films as Inglorious Basterds, Shame, X-Men: First Class and Prometheus, actor Michael Fassbender has decided to put on a hood and start killing people in the 16th century.

That’s right, he’s decided to produce and star in a movie version of the popular video game franchise Assassin’s Creed.

Assassin’s Creed, for those unawares, is an extremely successful line of video games which place you in the footsteps of a cold blooded, hooded assassin in eras as varied as the Crusades, the Renaissance and in this fall’s Assassin’s Creed 3, the American Revolution.  Of course, there’s a convoluted sci-fi story which surrounds them, something about you in the distant future being a member of the blood linage of the assassin’s, being forced to go back in time to find certain objects, but really, it’s just about cool ways of killing people in the past.

Unfortunately for Fassbender, the project currently has no studio attached. Game developers UbiSoft were working with Sony as recently as last year on a filmic version of the game franchise, but they chose to allow their option to lapse.

Hopefully, if a studio does green light the film (and given Fassbender’s rising star, I assume quite a few will want to), they focus more on the past, and less on the game’s gloomy, convoluted future.

We’ll keep an eye on this story as it develops.

Source: Variety.