Assassin's Creed is a ridiculously successful gaming franchise. Now it wants to be a ridiculously successful film franchise, following in the, um, total absence of any successful game-to-movie adaptations before it.

Sure, there was the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider "series", but game studio Ubisoft and film studio 20th Century Fox are aiming a bit bigger than that, as the following details prove beyond a shadow of a doubt...

Ubisoft

Assassin's Creed release date: When's it out?

Assassin's Creed (the movie) hits UK multiplexes on January 6, 2017. Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, the latest Assassin's Creed game, comes out on October 23 - don't get the two confused, or you'll have a very disappointing trip to the cinema.

If you're in America you'll get to see it on December 21 though, you lucky thing.

The production kicked off late on August 31, 2015, with locations including Malta, London and Spain and the shoot lasting well into October. With a very secretive set - as you'd expect, considering the intense media attention - there have been no leaked photos or paparazzi shots as yet.

Assassin's Creed trailer: can I get a sneaky peek?

Yes you can!

And that's not the only one. The second trailer landed in October and placed more emphasis on the modern day action and the unpredictable and violent nature of Michael Fassbender's career criminal Calum Lynch, steering it away from Prince Of Persia territory and closer to... Twelve Monkeys?

Assassin's Creed cast: Who's involved?

The two leads are the Oscar-nominated Michael Fassbender and the Oscar-winning Marion Cotillard. The director is Justin Kurzel, who previously waggled a megaphone in front of the pair for critically-acclaimed Shakespeare adaptation Macbeth.

The Wire's Michael K Williams and newcomer Ariane Labed are also on the cast list, with established character actors Jeremy Irons and Brendan Gleeson joining in October 2015. Labed's character was originally earmarked for Ex Machina veteran Alicia VIkander, but she dropped out at short notice to play a role in Jason Bourne.

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As well as starring, Michael Fassbender also produces, aided by an impressive roster of movie-making colleagues, including the legendary Frank Marshall (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit) and Jean-Julien Baronnet, the CEO of Ubisoft Motion Pictures (part of Ubisoft, the gaming studio that created the Assassin's Creed franchise).

Baronnet has told French film magazine Premiere that "we have an enormous brand and we want to make a film modelled on [films] like Batman Begins or Blade Runner", which means team AC are really aiming high with this one.

Ubisoft have worked hard to keep creative control over the project, which has been rumbling along since 2012. Over the years, four writers have had a crack at the script - Bill Collage, Adam Cooper, Michael Lesslie, Scott Frank - with the latter, Frank (Get Shorty, Out of Sight), most recently at the Assassin's Creed typewriter.

Assassin's Creed plot: What's it about?

With brand-new characters created for the film - but set within the gaming universe - the synopsis goes a little something like this:

"Callum Lynch (Fassbender) discovers he is a descendant of the secret Assassins society through unlocked genetic memories that allow him to relive the adventures of his ancestor, Aguilar, in 15th century Spain.

"After gaining incredible knowledge and skills he's poised to take on the oppressive Knights Templar in the present day."

From the first trailer, we now know that Lynch is supposed to be executed but instead finds himself spirited away by Cotillard's Sophia Rikkin, who works for the suspicious Abstergo Industries – a front for the Templars.

In short: Assassins good, Templars bad. Both secret societies have been around for literally ages, stabbing and slicing each other to bits in a never-ending dance to the death.

Three striking images released early last year first showed the duality of modern day and ancient Assassins - and definitely proved that Fassbender can mightily swing a sword. Later stills gave us a glimpse of him wielding a gun in the modern world. The boy is a fighter.

Here's what we learned on set of Assassin's Creed.

Assassin's Creed game: How will it incorporate elements?

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You should probably be aware of some general points around the games' lore to prep yourselves for some time-travelling insanity:

What sends Lynch back into the past is the "Animus", a device that allows him to experience his "ancestral memories" and discover the location of the macguffins that both the Templars and the Assassins are after: all-powerful artefacts called "Pieces of Eden". Chances are, the film's plot will hinge on finding these ancient doodads too.

A handy side effect to using the Animus to access your ancestors' memories is the ability to run and jump and stab just like great-great-granddaddy Lynch used to, thanks to a phenomenon called "The Bleeding Effect". This explains the second part of the synopsis above, where Fassbender kicks ass in the present day.

Perhaps unbelievably, one of the skills modern-day characters in the Assassin's Creed gaming franchise acquire is "Eagle Vision": an ability that allows you to see the world in a blue-and-white, detective-like way that highlights things like bad guys behind walls and all-important footprints on the ground.

This Eagle Vision may explain the bird of prey on the first official poster for "Assassin's Creed: The Movie" (see above). It's that, or Michael Fassbender thinks eagles are cool. Which they are.

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