Assassin's Creed Movie: 10 Actors To Play Desmond Miles

By Ron Reynolds /

When it was announced last year that Ubisoft intended to make a movie version of the hit video game franchise Assassin€™s Creed, I began beating my head against the desk in bewilderment. Why Hollywood? Why!? I thought it was a terrible idea. Aside from a base need to simply adapt everything popular into a potential top-dollar franchise, (which I can at least understand, even if I€™m in direct opposition to that kind of thinking), they€™re so blinded by the need for a big hit that they€™re overlooking the biggest reason why Assassin€™s Creed is not movie-ready: the fractured nature of the story of, essentially, two protagonists, in different time periods, that never share any screen time. Oh, and one of the characters is plugged into a machine in present day, that lets him relive the memories of one of his ancestors, an assassin, in the past. And that's the short version. Needless to say, a movie didn't sound good. Then I did some research for this article, and my hopes rose just a bit. When I was banging my head on the desk I didn€™t know just how involved Ubisoft, the makers of the game, would be, and how they had been the recipients of one of the craziest movie deals ever. Ubisoft somehow got Sony to give away almost all creative control for the film, reportedly including script, cast, director, and even budget, which is nigh unheard of. Still, the fact that Ubisoft is going to be basically developing the movie in-house, and just hooking up with a major distributor (now Fox), is cause for a little bit of optimism. They€™re not going to rush into anything, and they€™re sure to be faithful to the source material. This could mean that we'll never see the movie at all, or it could be great, who knows. As fans, there€™s not much we can do to affect the big decisions, but we can let the powers that be know that if we€™re being subjected to an Assassin€™s Creed movie, we at least want it to be good. With that in mind, and in honor of the newest iteration of the franchise (Assassin's Creed III) coming out today, we€™ve put together a list of actors that looks different than every casting director€™s go-to short list. The main thing we kept in mind, is who would be best to play Desmond Miles, the modern-day protagonist, based on both appearance and acting ability. Nothing against Michael Fassbender, whom I find to be a damn good actor, but I just don€™t see him in this role. Granted, nobody has officially confirmed him as Desmond, but nonetheless, I just don€™t see it. So for the purposes of this list, let€™s pretend no one has been cast yet. Bradley Cooper, JGL, Chris Pine, Channing Tatum, Sam Worthington and Ryan Gosling are not on this list. While fine in their own right, they€™re on every short list for every film. If you want that list, you€™re in the wrong place. Chances are the casting team will laugh at and ignore this list, but if it gets them thinking outside the normal casting box even a little, then I€™ve done my job here. Let€™s start things off a little slow, and a bit tongue-in-cheek.