Last month it was announced that Dark Knight Rises star Tom Hardy would be playing the lead role in the big screen adaptation of Ubisoft's hit video game Splinter Cell. At the time of the announcement there was still no Hollywood studio attached to the project until just recently. It was announced that New Regency would be teaming up with Ubisoft Motion Pictures to bring Splinter Cell to life. So now that it's got a studio backing it the movie can move forward.
Hardy will play a covert operative named Sam Fisher who works for Third Echelon. The name of the game, Splinter Cell, refers to an elite recon-type unit of single covert operatives (Fisher) who are supported in the field by a high-tech remote team.
As far as the games go, the first three games in the franchise see Fisher trying to stop a terrorist organization who are planning and carrying out attacks. In the fourth game Fisher assumes the identity of a wanted criminal in order to infiltrate a terrorist ring. Fisher abandons Third Echelon in the fifth game, and goes on a personal mission to take down the people responsible for killing his daughter. There's also a sixth game coming out next year in which Sam Fisher is the leader and founder of a new covert organization called Fourth Echelon, after the President shuts down Third Echelon.
I love the fact that Hardy is playing the lead character in this movie! It's currently be written by Eric Warren Singer and I'm excited to see how it turns out!
Here's the Full Press Release:
Ubisoft® and New Regency announced that they are partnering on the forthcoming Tom Clancy’s™ Splinter Cell® film.
Ubisoft Motion Pictures, the film and television division of Ubisoft, will develop the Splinter Cell movie in close collaboration with New Regency. Ubisoft also recently announced it attached award-winning actor Tom Hardy and up-and-coming screenwriter Eric Warren Singer (“The International”) to the film.
“With actor Tom Hardy attached and screenwriter Eric Warren Singer to write the script, Ubisoft Motion Pictures will lead the development with the support of New Regency to bring the franchise to the big screen in a dynamic way,” said Jean-Julien Baronnet, chief executive officer, Ubisoft Motion Pictures. “For Ubisoft Motion Pictures, creative control is key and New Regency shares our commitment to respecting the creative freedom of our team. Their ability to produce both blockbusters and intriguing indie hits is an ideal fit for the Splinter Cell franchise.”
“We could not be happier to be teaming up with our friends at Ubisoft Motion Pictures on yet another truly iconic title. With a movie star like Tom Hardy in place and a gifted writer such as Eric Warren Singer penning the screenplay, we know the fans will not be let down,” said New Regency CEO and President, Brad Weston.
This deal is separate from but builds upon the recent partnership between Ubisoft and New Regency to develop the Assassin’s Creed® film.
Tom Clancy’s™ Splinter Cell® is an award-winning stealth action video game series that has sold more than 23 million copies since its debut in 2002. Splinter Cell follows protagonist Sam Fisher, a highly-trained special operative in a fictional black-ops sub-division, “Echelon”. Sam Fisher and the agents of Echelon utilize combat skills, weapons and cutting-edge gadgets to neutralize international terrorist threats and rogue forces in modern, realistic stories ripped from the headlines. Development for the next installment, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell® Blacklist™, is being led by the Ubisoft Toronto studio, and the game is set for release in Spring 2013.
Ubisoft Motion Pictures was created in January 2011 to expand the audience of Ubisoft’s successful video game brands by bringing them to film, television and Web series. In addition to the Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell film, the studio is also partnering with New Regency on the upcoming film based on the Assassin’s Creed franchise, and is in production on the Rabbids TV series, a collection of 78 seven-minute CGI episodes based on the insane stars of the video game franchise of the same name, in partnership with France Televisions and Nickelodeon.