Watch Dogs Live-Action Film Adaptation Is in the Works
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As video game adaptations continue to ramp up, it looks like Watch Dogs will be one of the next titles to get the treatment.
Deadline reports today that studio New Regency is developing an adaptation of the Ubisoft property. Sophie Wilde, who broke out in A24’s hit horror movie Talk to Me, is in talks to star, with French filmmaker Mathieu Turi on board to direct and Christie LeBlanc writing.
No plot details were shared beyond the fact that the film “is set within the universe of Ubisoft’s blockbuster video game franchise,” per Deadline. Each Watch Dogs game takes place in a fictionalized version of a real city, following a different hacker protagonist who inevitably gets wrapped up in the criminal underworld (and the rival hackers) of their respective location.
Watch Dogs is only the latest Ubisoft game to head to the big screen. Other projects that have been announced include a live-action Assassin’s Creed series for Netflix and a film adaptation of Tom Clancy’s The Division starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Chastain, although it’s been some time since we’ve gotten news of either of those projects.
Last year, Netflix debuted Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix, an animated series from Adi Shankar that was something of a mash-up of various Ubisoft properties including Far Cry, Assassin’s Creed, Rayman, and more.
Watch Dogs has had three games in total so far, following protagonist Aiden Pearce in a version of the Chicago metropolitan area in the first one and Marcus Holloway in a fictionalized San Francisco in the second. The latest game, 2020’s Watch Dogs: Legion, took a different approach, offering players multiple playable characters in a fictionalized version of dystopian London.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
