There are bits of Assassin’s Creed the video game that Hollywood would do well to leave out of the upcoming big-screen adaptation (which, incidentally, we’re rather looking forward to).
In the game – particularly the very first one in the long-running series – you spend ages sitting around on a bench listening to conversations for clues about your potential targets. There were also countless missions that asked you to slowly pursue people unfortunate enough to find themselves on your hit-list for what felt like absolutely ages.
We don’t need ultra-authentic recreations of these bits in the movie, but if there’s one aspect of the game that they need to absolutely nail, it’s the trademark “Leap of Faith”.
It doesn’t matter how many of the ‘Creed games you’ve played: nothing will surpass the first time you launched yourself from the top of a huge tower and landed impossibly into a comfortable bed of hay on the hard ground. It’s one of gaming’s iconic scenes.
It would have been very tempting for the Michael Fassbender-led film of the game to go full CG for that part, but a new behind-the-scenes video proves that they’re pulling out all the stops to make it look amazing. That is to say: it’s all real.
Director Justin Kurzel brought in big-name stuntman Damien Walters to perform a frankly ridiculous 125 freefall – one of the highest done by anyone in almost 35 years.
Walters’ CV includes stuntwork on Kick-Ass, Captain America: The First Avenger and Skyfall, so he’s used to hurling himself off things in the name of Hollywood. But even so, even he must have been feeling the butterflies at that height. Thankfully, the filmmakers gave him a huge crash mat to aim for, rather than the tiny horse carts afforded to the protagonists in the game. Those guys have unlimited restarts in their favour.
Check out the incredible video below, which features a few warm-up jumps before the staggering finale.
And here’s that trailer again in case you need your memory refreshed. Mark 1 January in the diary if you know what’s good for you, yeah?
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