Ubisoft is good at Hollywood

To get a videogame movie made, game publishers traditionally shop their IPs around to the studios. Hey, Paramount, want to make a Daikatana movie? No? What about you, Fox? Columbia/Sony? Miramax? Microsoft went so far as to get a Halo script written first and then they allegedly got some dude in a Master Chief suit to schlepp it around. See how well that worked out? You can’t wow movie studios the same way you wow Gamespot reviewers.

But Ubisoft has a different idea. Go straight for the star power. They did that earlier this year by hitching Assassin’s Creed to Michael Fassbender’s production company and, by association, Michael Fassbender (who might not actually be in the movie, but never mind that).

This week, Ubisoft enlisted Tom Hardy (pictured) to spearhead a Splinter Cell movie. There’s no director yet, and no studio, and therefore no funding. But given Tom Hardy’s rising star, it’s a pretty safe assumption that the money will follow, and therefore a Splinter Cell movie is all but in the can, with Tom Hardy playing Michael Ironsides.