The Assassin's Creed movie hasn't been so hooded or stealthy recently. Thanks to a feature in this month's Total Film magazine, we know that an Assassin's Creed sequel has already been discussed and the claw animus from the movie might end up in the games.
For even more info, we caught up with director Justin Kurzel for half an hour on Facebook Live with a stack of your questions and didn't even have to threaten him with a hidden blade to learn some juicy Assassin's facts. Here's what we learned and, don't worry, if you're waiting on a new Assassin's Creed movie trailer, it's "coming soon".
The soundtrack is from Kurzel’s composer brother Jed
“It’s pretty muscular. It’s been, again with the characters from the future and the past, how you take certain sounds from the Spanish Inquisition and then sort of weave them into Abstergo which has a much more electronic, architectural tone. At the moment it’s quite exciting because it’s this blend between the drum-like percussive sounds of Spain in the 15th century - which Jed and I have had a lot of fun distorting and playing with - and the very synth-like sounds of Abstergo that will reflect the architecture and this sort of coldness.”
Aguilar’s fellow Assassin Maria is a true warrior
“I guess she [Maria] kind of has a brother/sister relationship with Aguilar who Michael Fassbender is playing. She’s a really interesting character. It’s not your typical love interest character. She’s a warrior, she has very fundamental ideas and she’s extremely strong and played by this extraordinary actress Ariane Labed who did most of the action sequences herself as well as speaking in Spanish. She’s very, very exciting in the film, we’re really lucky to have her and we’re really lucky to be able to have a strong female character who’s not just a sort of side placement to the male lead. It’s someone who’s actually integral to the drama that unfolds.”
Michael Fassbender did most of his own fight sequences
“He did a lot of the stunts himself. He did a lot of fight sequences himself. That was really important to both of us. That it actually looked like our Assassin was actually him all the time and who you saw was the actor playing him. We were much more involved in the physical action than we were previously in Macbeth."
Bones were broken during filming
“We wanted the Assassins to be climbing up buildings, fighting in 40 degree heat on top of churches and doing a real leap of faith. We definitely wanted to go a little old school with it and make sure our Assassins didn’t sort of float and dance in the sky and that they actually felt very human and you could feel the punches, the falls and the crashes. There’s many jumps that are quite extraordinary. We had people breaking their ankles and legs. There was a lot of carnage that went with the stunt guys and also Michael and Ariane in terms of the bumps that they encountered.”
Those facial tattoos have a reason other than looking cool
“I think because we were in Seville and there was a very strong Middle Eastern reference throughout, a lot of the art and a lot of the costumes were very inspired. With the Assassins in our film it felt like they were travellers. Like they had picked up some things here and there and there was something very tribal about them. We got quite inspired by certain sort of tattoos that could define them and they could still be hidden under the hood so the stealth would still work. We were really interested in the Creed and what the Creed meant at that time and I guess that kind of Middle Eastern influence that started to sort of creep into the Assassins’ look and feel for the film.”
The historical sequences were shot in both Spanish AND English
"I wanted it to be as authentic as possible. It’s interesting, we actually filmed English and Spanish. I really wanted those sort of times where you went back to the period and experienced that period through Aguilar who is Cals ancestor. I really wanted the audience to feel like they were there and experiencing it through Aguilar’s point of view. As soon as people are speaking Spanish in those real environments and those real situations to me and New Regency it just felt so much more engaging and so much more authentic and kind of more exciting. Thankfully New Regency were just as excited as we were and I’m really proud of that, that those periods and also that culture, that language is really celebrated in the film.
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