Trivia / Assassin's Creed (2016)

• Acting for Two: Michael Fassbender plays both Callum Lynch and his ancestor, Aguilar de Nerha.
• All-Star Cast: Features Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Essie Davis, Michael K. Williams, Charlotte Rampling and, for Spain, Javier Gutiérrez.
• Approval of God: The leading creatives of the Assassin's Creed franchise at Ubisoft loved the film's production design and said that they would try to incorporate the film's version of the Animus into future games of the franchise. The design ended up incorprated in Valhalla, into the Valhalla machine.
• California Doubling:
  • The 1491-1492 scenes in the Spanish cities of Granada and Seville were filmed in Valletta, Malta. Only the aerial shots of the Giralda tower in Seville and the Alhambra in Granada were taken in the real cities.
  • The indoor modern-day scenes at the Abstergo Madrid center were shot at Pinewood Studios in England, in the 007 Soundstage most notably. The giant bunker-like building is fictional but was superimposed on an aerial view of the San Isidro barrio (ward) of Madrid's Carabanchel district in the place of a local cemetery.
• The Cast Showoff: The guy who plays Ojeda, Hovik Keuchkerian, is a former Spanish champion in both boxing and Kickboxing, and he gets appropriately to give a couple punches to Fassbender's character in fight scenes. He also said in an interview that he found the filmic style of swordfighting very similar to the movements done in boxing.
• Creator Couple: Essie Davis, who portrays Callum's mother, is married to the film's director Justin Kurzel.
• The Danza: Michelle H. Lin as the Assassin Lin.
• Deleted Role: Among the Assassin descendants in Abstergo headquarters there was originally a young girl named Lara (played by Octavia-Selena Alexandru of Game of Thrones fame), who inherited memories from Maria, implying the latter survived to the capture of Granada and had offspring in that version of the script. Her entire subplot was edited out very late in development, but her scenes are included in the home release of the movie.
• Deleted Scene: A ton of them, although some have been released.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Michael Fassbender trained for six months in order to attain the muscular physique of a character used to running and jumping off rooftops and fighting dozens of mooks at once.
• Fake Nationality:
  • The Irish-German Michael Fassbender pulls double-duty, playing both an American (Callum) and a Spaniard (Aguilar).
  • Greek-French Ariane Labed plays the Spanish María.
  • Matías Valera, Swedish of Spanish descent, plays his character's Turkish ancestor, assassin Yusuf Tazim, in a deleted scene.
  • Khalid Abdalla, a Brit of Egyptian parents, plays Muhammad XII of Granada, an Andalusi Arab.
  • Maltese Thomas Camilleri and Ukrainian Marysia S. Peres play Spaniards King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella respectively.
  • Downplayed with the Spanish-Armenian Hovik Keuchkerian playing a full blooded Spaniard (Ojeda). Keuchkerian has the Spanish nationality since his childhood, though.
• Production Posse: This would be the second time director Justin Kurzel works with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard—since their first outing in the 2015 adaptation of Macbeth. Also, Justin Kurzel's older brother Jed composes all of his films' soundtracks since Snowtown (2011).
• Saved from Development Hell: The film was first announced in 2011, but although Michael Fassbender was attached to the project in 2012, it wasn't until 2013 that a writer became attached to the project and work began on the script. Certain announcements made it appear as if filming was to begin in 2014 and a director, Justin Kurzel, was finally hired. However, further delays meant that principal photography didn't start until a year later in August 2015. Teaser images then began being slowly released◊. Luckily, actual production went smoothly, with principal photography wrapping in January 2016 and a firm December 21, 2016 release date in place.
• Stillborn Franchise: The chances to see a movie sequel, which were already meager due to its cost vs box office results, decreased dramatically when Disney execs axed most of the 20th Century Fox movie development slate in August 2019, including the sequel project. Wild Mass Guessing is at play if the upcoming Netflix series will build upon it or not.
• Troubled Production: The film's script was constantly changed, explaining all the cuts and deleted footage that happened throughout the process.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Sony Pictures was originally going to produce and distribute the film, but the deal with Ubisoft broke apart in 2012 because Ubisoft wanted to maintain absolute creative control and Sony was unwilling to do so with such an expensive project. New Regency stepped in to produce while Fox took over distribution.
  • Alicia Vikander was cast as María, but she had to drop out due to her committments with Jason Bourne and was replaced by Ariane Labed. She ended up in another video game-inspired film, and later married Fassbender.
  • The first cut of the movie included a subplot in which Callum would meet a spunky teenaged descendant of Maria named Lara (played by Octavia-Selena Alexandru), which implies Maria survived to the battle against Torquemada in this version. Lara had been raised by the Rikkin family to be a Templar, but she grew interested in the Assassins due to her genetic memory, which she saw through drawings and a paper fortune teller, and would ultimately betray Sophia to escape with Callum and other three assassins. All those scenes were filmed, but they were ultimately cut from the final product because director Kurzwel considered she complicated things too much.
  • The original ending had five Assassins surviving (Callum, Lara, Lin, Moussa and Nathan), but after Lara was deleted, it was changed to Callum being the sole survivor of the Abstergo revolt, with all the rest dying in the battle. However, test audiences found the ending too dark, so it was changed to the one in which Moussa and Lin survive with Callum. (Also, a version of the ending had Callum seeing a ghostly image of his mother a last time.)
  • Deleted scenes showed all ancestors of the main Assassins, including Yusuf Tazim, Baptiste, Duncan Walpole and Shao Jun, with their actors in costume. Arno Dorian also appeared, played by an unknown actor.
  • In yet another deleted scene, Joseph Lynch would steal Arno Dorian's Guillotine Gun from the Abstergo museum and use it to aid in the battle. After being taken down by Abstergo guards, he would give Cal his mother's necklace with his dying breath.

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