Yup, this is another installment of this and a follow up to my first one on the first AC game. AC II was an incredible game and nobody can really deny that. It improved upon the flaws of the original and dropped the repetition that plagued the first one. It took the series to Renaissance Italy a time period nobody really ever does much with. We followed the tale of Ezio Auditore Da Firenze- the son of a well known banker Giovanni Auditore who was also an Assassin. He and several of Ezio's brothers are executed and Ezio inherits his father's position and is inducted into the Assassin Order.
Now this one seems to have more potential as a movie than the first one does. Not only is that because the story would be great in a movie, it also because this takes place in Italy and given the current political situation in the Middle East; a movie based on the first one doesn't seem as likely. Ezio also seems to be more popular than Altair which is understandable given the fact that Ezio has had more games than Altair has. I prefer Altair; I think he is quite interesting and not boring or lacking personality. The character is cold but for a reason, he was brought up that way and that's how the Assassin's were at the time.
Like I would do for the first game, I would probably split this up into two films or even possibly three if the story could fit three films all over two hours in length. I’m sure a studio would do that as splitting it up means you can make even more money off of them especially when it comes to DVD/Blu-ray sales. Studios love their money so I'm sure they'd realize how much they could make off of splitting up the film into several parts.
Director: Ridley Scott & Peter Weir
Once again, I would go with Ridley Scott. He may have an unsettling interest in 3D but still the man is a legendary director of these big budget period piece films or epics as you could call them. Scott has the knowledge of these sorts of films to make an excellent adaptation of the series. He’s never worked with this time period before so it would be very interesting to see him do the Renaissance Era.
Scott’s sudden love of 3D is quite disheartening and that’s why I’m actually unsure about him as a Director even if I’m confident that he could make a great Assassin’s Creed film. Hopefully if he did the film, it wouldn’t feature any 3D because that would just ruin the film.
Another choice I have for this film would be Peter Weir. Master and Commander was definitely one of the best films of the 2000's and far better than most epics/period pieces are. He really made the focus of it the characters, something most directors of epics don't do. They tend to focus more on the setting and action than anything. If you need an example of an epic like that, look at Troy. Wolfgang Petersen has made some great movies in his time but unfortunately Troy is not one of them. It's enjoyable but great?, it is not.
Weir happens to an incredible director and could really make the emotional points in the story really work on film. The Truman Show made you really feel for Truman thanks to Peter Weir but mainly thanks to Jim Carrey whose work as the character was quite impressive; and even more impressive when combined with the talents of Peter Weir. If the film could be directed by either one of them or done by both, I would be absolutely ecstatic as they both are immensely talented directors.
Ezio/Desmond
Casting Ezio is easy because an actor that Mistress Redhead originally suggested to me for the role of Altair seemed to me to be better suited for Ezio. That actor is Joe Manganiello who was almost Superman in Zach Snyder’s Man of Steel and he wants to play the Punisher in a Punisher film directed by Michael Mann. Sure he has the build and wants to play the role but I want Thomas Jane back as The Punisher.
He’s currently 34 years old, is a professional actor as he went to school for acting, and is 6’5”. To me he’s perfect for the role of Ezio. Others seem to want Jason Statham for some reason that I can’t explain or even fathom because I think Statham is entirely wrong for the role of Ezio Auditore Da Firenze. Like I said in my Casting Call for the first Assassin's Creed game, I would have him play both Ezio and Desmond since the bleeding effect makes them look like one another.
The guy is young and yet at the same time could play older Ezio as well or Jeffrey Dean Morgan could play older Ezio if Revelations were ever made into a film. Still Manganiello has done all sorts of training for some of the roles he's played so I'm pretty confident this guy could be a perfect fit for Ezio.
Lucy Stillman
Why not cast an actress who actually plays a character in a fellow video game series? So why not cast Emily Rose to play Lucy Stillman. She's currently the tough and beautiful Elena Fisher in the Uncharted series and I think is perfect for Stillman. Now that I'm talking about the Uncharted series, It reminds how I should do a series of blogs on casting them as well. Elena is my favorite character in the Uncharted franchise because I think she's a cool character and much better for Nate than Chloe would be. Stillman is a pretty small role in the first one but that doesn't mean that you can cast anybody to play the role.
I think Emily Rose could play the role even if it's based on Kristen Bell. Bell isn't an actress I know a thing about so I can't say whether or not she should play the role. Still though looking at her photos, I'm convinced that Kristen Bell could possibly play the role as well. She voices Lucy so she already knows the character and while she's perfect the role in Live-Action, I think it'd be a little weird having her play the character in live-action after voicing her. I don't know however if either actress can do stunts as in Brotherhood I do recall Lucy doing parkour so if they can't then that's going to be a problem since the character doesn't wear a hood and a stuntdouble is going to have a hard time trying to be her.
I would have either actress play the character in all her appearances. Both are talented and I would definitely keep them on in the script. I don't know how important the character is Brotherhood or Revelations though so I'm not sure whether or not I'd keep the character in those if she wasn't important enough. I want either actress but I don't know they can do stunts.
Shaun Hastings
Shaun Hastings was by far the easiest character I ever had to cast as his voice actor is perfect to play him in live-action. Danny Wallace's likeness is used for the character so there's no need to find another actor to play the character. I'm still having trouble though coming up with actors for many of the other characters since there are so many different important supporting characters in the game.
Giovanni Auditore
AC II has quite a few main supporting roles and I'm not going to try and write something about each of them because that would be way too many to write up. Most of the roles could be filled by their voice actors since many of them were motion captured. I'm sure a lot of them could be easily filled because they're not especially hard roles to cast. One role In particular that I'm keen on using the voice actor from is that Ezio's father-Giovanni. Romano Orzari did a great job in Assassin's Creed Lineage and I don't see a reason to find another actor to play the role.
Orzari got his time to shine as Giovanni in Lineage and that showed what could be done with the series in live-action. I didn't like how it used mostly all CGI for the interiors of rooms and everything else but still it was pretty good. Sure it felt a little wonky but for the most part I quite enjoyed it. The fight scenes were the most interesting because I wasn't quite sure how the fighting would be done but it turned out looking pretty cool.
