Corona | Coming Attractions

After shopping the rights to their video game franchise Assassin's Creed around Tinseltown for the past couple of months, Sony Pictures is emerging as the likely owner of the IP.

Ubisoft is the French game developer that owns the rights, and has released three Assassin's Creed games since 2007. A fourth game, subtitled Revelations, comes out November 15. More than 30 million copies of the various games have been sold around the world.

Sources inform Variety that several Hollywood studios were interested in the property, which is expected to sell for a tidy sum. Sony may be interested in co-developing and sharing part of the cost with other partners, including Ubisoft. With the game's central character a man in the present day who can mentally voyage to different eras in the past and share the bodies of his assassin-skilled ancestors, there's a potential high concept movie franchise awaiting the victor.

Just remember, the rights haven't sold yet, so if there's been any discussion about talent to direct, write, produce or star in the Assassin's Creed movie, it hasn't leaked out from the Sony discussions yet. Still, one can surmise that those players who have a good, strong, preexisting relationship with the movie studio would be among the first candidates to take meetings about making Assassin's Creed: The Movie.