Another day, another piece of bad news for Ubisoft fans, although this one doesn’t come as an absolute shock: the Splinter Cell movie starring Tom Hardy just officially got canceled. The reason it isn’t a massive surprise to anyone is because the idea of bringing Sam Fisher to the big screen was originally revealed back in 2012, which was, needless to say, many, many moons ago.
Tom Hardy had just finished The Dark Knight Rises and was at the absolute peak when the Splinter Cell idea was pushed. A couple of years later, Doug Liman was roped into the project, known for directing Edge of Tomorrow starring Tom Cruise, and ever since that announcement, we’ve only heard tidbits that showed some signs of life, but nothing conclusive.
But clearly, the lack of a movie is evidence that this plan fell flat sometime soon after the announcement. The announcement of the death of the Splinter Cell movie project comes from Basil Iwanyk, the producer of the project, where he said in an interview with The Direct that this movie was “the one that got away.”
He went on to say that the movie would have been great, but the team just couldn’t get it right. He was referring to both the script and the budget. There were apparently “a million different versions of it” but none of them made the cut.
Splinter Cell fans don’t need to worry too much, since although a game isn’t coming out any time soon, Netflix and Ubisoft did reveal a new animated show called Splinter Cell: Deathwatch. Ubisoft did reveal that a remake of the first Splinter Cell game was being worked on, considering how the development of the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake is going, it is likely a ways away, if it ever becomes a reality at all.
Ubisoft has had a tough year, with the underwhelming release of Star Wars: Outlaws to the plethora of lawsuits. The French developer then decided to fix its botched release and to move back the release date of the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows to make sure it’s up to the quality fans expect. This will hopefully help it recover from the share price slump the company is currently in.
