Ubisoft Motion Pictures will focus on making movies and films based on hit Ubisoft franchise, as we’ve reported on in the past, but now the studio has officially launched and will begin working on upcoming unnamed projects.
The studio will be entirely focused on creation motion pictures out of Ubisofts very large library of videogame properties, including TV shows, webisodes or short films, any movie media that goes beyond videogames will be the domain of Ubisoft Motion Pictures.
The new studio is based in Paris, France and is being headed by Jean-Julien Baronnet, the previous CEO of EuropaCorp, the production company for film director Luc Besson who directed such cult classics as The Fifth Element and La Femme Nikita. French producer Didier Lupfer (Gainsbourg) will be head of development and production with sales and marketing being handled by former Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures France head Jean de Rivieres. Looks like they have all the right pieces to really make something happen, eh. This announcement came via Variety, which reported on the news.
Nothing was announced by Ubisoft holds the keys to Splinter Cell, Assassin’s Creed, Prince of Persia, Crysis, Driver, Rayman, Raving Rabbids, Beyond Good & Evil, Brothers in Arms, Far Cry, Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, EndWar, Advanced Warfighter, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Red Steel, Wheelman and many, many, many more franchises and games that could easily make the transition to film or TV.
Of course, already Ubisoft worked with Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer to turn Prince of Persia into a major motion picture (hopefully we’ll see a sequel one day) and already produced the live-action short film series Assassin’s Creed: Lineage.
What is certain is that many “Tom Clancy” films are coming as Ubisoft bought the rights in early 2008 to everything “inspired by” the works of authorTom Clancy which would include all of their many videogame “Clancy” titles, as mentioned above. And the film focus has been long int he works, going back to 2007 when Ubisoft was considering going into film animation. In late 2008 they also purchased Hybride, the Quebecois special-effects studio responsible for some of the incredible special effects seen in the films 300 and Watchmen.
So expect some major announcements soon, possibly at E3 2011.
Here is the first episode of the Assassin’s Creed: Lineage short film to give you an idea of the quality Ubisoft expects, which will be much greater when they REALLY get started with their motion pictures out of the new “Ubisoft Motion Pictures” studio.
Via GameSpot