Corona | Coming Attractions

No surprise here but Hollywood studios are interested in picking up the screen rights to Ubisoft's Splinter Cell video game franchise. Endorsed by military spy thriller novelist Tom Clancy, the games have sold over 22 million copies and also been spun off into their own book series.

Deadline is the online outlet breaking the news and adding that Paramount Pictures is the current frontrunner to successfully land the rights. The synergy makes sense; Paramount is also the same studio that has held the movie rights to Clancy's Jack Ryan hero. If they manage to reboot the Ryan movies (Star Trek's Chris Pine is the name hinted at), and it's a hit, then a Splinter Cell movie featuring that franchise's Sam Fisher would make smart business sense.

But Paramount isn't the only movie studio interested in Splinter Cell. According to the original report, Warner Bros. was speaking with Ubisoft only a couple of weeks ago.

2012 marks the tenth anniversay of the Splinter Cell gaming franchise. Next year will see the release of the seventh video game, Splinter Cell: Blacklist.