Ubisoft says Assassin's Creed movie is a 'marketing opportunity', not expected to earn a lot of money

Movies based on video games have a long-running reputation of not failing on the big screen, both critically and financially. While many hoped that Duncan Jones' adaptation of Blizzard's strategy game Warcraft would break the dreaded video game adaptation curse this summer, the film has not been successful in the US and failed to impress critics in the West, despite its incredible success in China.

Still, many gamers and fans are still optimistic that the upcoming Assassin's Creed movie will be the film to become the first critically and commercially acclaimed video game adaptation. French game developer Ubisoft, however, is not expecting the movie to be a big money maker, but rather sees it as a way to increase awareness for the franchise as a whole.

"We are not going to earn a lot of money from it," Ubisoft's EMEA executive director Alain Corre said in an interview with MCV. "It is a lot more a marketing thing; it is also good for the image of the brand. Although we will make some money, it is not the purpose of this movie."

"The purpose is to bring Assassin's Creed to more people. We have our core fans, but what we would like is to put this franchise in front of a lot more people who, maybe, will then pick up future Assassin's Creed games."

However, that does not imply that Ubisoft doesn't believe the upcoming film will be a success in the box office. Ubisoft later clarified saying that aside from its marketing benefits, they have worked hard to "deliver a quality experience" to fans of the franchise.

"Ubisoft's core vision is to create top quality entertainment and experiences," Ubisoft said. "For the Assassin's Creed film, we have worked closely with our partners at New Regency and 20th Century Fox as well as the talented cast and production team from the very beginning to ensure we deliver a quality experience to ours fans. We strongly believe the Assassin's Creed brand has this crossover appeal that will please both video games fans and movie goers."

In May, Ubisoft's head of content for the Assassin's Creed brand, Azaizi Aymar, took to Twitter to express his confidence in the highly anticipated film, saying it would be the first to break the trend of abysmal videogame-based movies.

Ubisoft's internal film division, Ubisoft Motion Pictures, worked closely with the production team behind the Assassin's Creed movie to make sure it did not stray too far from the franchise's roots as well. The team is also reportedly planning movie adaptations of The Division and Splinter Cell as well.

The Assassin's Creed movie will hit theatres on 21 December starring Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard and Ariane Labed.

But the first video game cinematic adaptation to breakthrough as the genre's first big hit, may already be out. According to Box Office Mojo, The Angry Birds Movie, which is based on the popular smartphone franchise, has so far earned $337.5m (£260.6m) in cinemas worldwide and is one of 2016's top 10 cinematic earners in the US.