‘Splinter Cell’ Getting A Rewrite; Tom Hardy Still Attached

• By Sandy Schaefer
• 07.14.2015
• 4 Comment

Ubisoft is following Marvel Studios’ example and bringing its own properties (video games, in this case) to the big screen with its Motion Pictures division. The Assassin’s Creed movie will start production in Fall 2015, with Michael Fassbender headlining and Justin Kurzel (Macbeth (2015)) calling the shots. Meanwhile, Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell film will continue make it way through pre-production, at a slower pace it seems.

Mad Max: Fury Road star Tom Hardy has long been (and still is) attached to headline Splinter Cell as Sam Fisher, a deadly special operative who carries out black op missions for the (fictional) special operations and counter-terrorism unit, Echelon. The project, as mentioned before, is actively moving forward, but is now undergoing another script revision.

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Deadline is reporting that actor/screenwriter Frank John Hughes (who played Tim Woods on 24) is currently putting together a fresh script draft for the Splinter Cell film adaptation. Previous screenplay drafts for the project were penned by the Oscar-nominated scribes Eric Warren Singer (American Hustle) and Sheldon Turner (Up in the Air, X-Men: First Class), respectively, but it remains to be seen which of these screenwriters ultimately receive credit for their work.

Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed film adaptation project also went through several script revisions during pre-production, so the screenplay re-writes on Splinter Cell are par for the course for the company’s Motion Pictures division, at this stage. Video game movie adaptations are notorious for not being very good, so there’s all the more reason for Ubisoft to carefully fine-tune the scripts for its additions to the genre – especially seeing as IPs like Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell are the organization’s own prize ponies.