Will 'Assassin's Creed' Break the Video Game Movie Curse? Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard Weigh In

Despite such high-profile disappointments as Warcraft and Need for Speed, Hollywood seems unwilling to put a pause on the trend of turning popular video games into big-budget movies. The blockbuster Ubisoft franchise, Assassin’s Creed, is the latest game to make the leap to the big screen, with an A-list cast that boasts the likes of Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Michael K. Williams and Jeremy Irons. “This concept that video games don’t translate well to films — none of us really knew that,” Fassbender tells Yahoo Movies, crediting the complexity of the Assassin’s Creed universe as the cast’s motivating interest in the material. “The questions we ask [in the film], they’re very profound,” Cotillard adds.

But don’t worry, gamers: Assassin’s Creed (which hits theaters on Dec. 21) still has plenty of hacking and slashing, which befits the story of a criminal, Callum Lynch (Fassbender), who discovers that he’s descended from an ancient order of butt-kicking assassins. “We shot all the action sequences in a very visceral, real way,” reveals Fassbender. “There’s not a lot of CGI.” And no cheat codes either, for that matter.

Watch the ‘Assassin’s Creed’ trailer: