Assassin’s Creed Netflix Series Reveals 5 New Cast Members — Including Tanzyn Crawford
Nearly six months have passed since Netflix first announced its live-action TV-series adaptation of the immensely successful “Assassin’s Creed” video game series, which has produced a total of 14 main games and 17 spin-offs since it began in 2007. This will be the second attempt at a screen adaptation, following 20th Century Fox’s less-than-successful (and poorly received) 2016 film. While we don’t yet know which of the many storylines Netflix’s adaptation will pull from the most, we do now know the names of several cast members.
Five Named Actors in All
On November 25 of last year, a Tudum article made the first casting announcement for the “Assassin’s Creed” series. The actor in question is Toby Wallace, whose previous screen credits include Netflix’s teen drama series “The Society.” (This show had one season in 2019 and was subsequently cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.)
Now, we know the names of four more cast members: Laura Marcus (“Tom Jones,” “The Great Escaper,” the forthcoming “The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping”), Zachary Hart (“Slow Horses”), Lola Petticrew (“Dating Amber,” “Anne Boleyn”), and Tanzyn Crawford (the upcoming “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms“). Crawford’s casting was announced most recently, in another Tudum article published on January 2.
Story and Characters Kept Under Wraps, For Now
At present, nothing is known about any of the characters whom these actors will be portraying. For that matter, Netflix has been equally cagey about what kind of story they’ll be telling with this series. The “Assassin’s Creed” game series gives them a wealth of tales and historical eras from which they can draw, but the entire franchise is centered around the same ancient conflict between the fascistic Knights Templar and the liberal Order of Assassins.
The original Tudum article references this millennia-old war in a bland logline that describes the forthcoming “Assassin’s Creed” series as “a high-octane thriller centered on the secret war between two shadowy factions – one set on determining mankind’s future through control and manipulation, the other fighting to preserve free will. The series will follow its characters across pivotal historical events as they battle to shape humanity’s destiny.”
Dedicated People Behind the Scenes
We may hope that the creative team at Netflix has cooked up a good story – they’ve had quite some time in which to do so, after all. Netflix and Ubisoft, which owns “Assassin’s Creed,” first entered into partnership talks as early as 2016, and they made an agreement in 2020. “Now,” said Peter Friedlander, Netflix’s Vice President of Scripted Series, in a statement included in the recent Tudum article, “after years of dedicated collaboration, it’s inspiring to see just how far that vision has come… the team has carefully crafted an epic adventure that both honors the legacy of the Assassin’s Creed franchise and invites longtime fans and newcomers alike to experience the thrill of the Brotherhood as never before.”
The team in question is helmed by showrunners Roberto Patino and David Wiener. Patino has been nominated for two Emmy Awards as an executive producer on the HBO sci-fi series “Westworld” (on which he was also a writer); he has previously been the showrunner and creator of the dystopian miniseries “DMZ.” Wiener is also Emmy-nominated, thanks to his executive-producer credit on the horror miniseries “Fear the Walking Dead: Flight 462.” His other credits include “Halo,” “Homecoming,” and “Brave New World”; he was the showrunner of the last of these. Both showrunners have expressed a strong love for the “Assassin’s Creed” franchise, as well as a deep understanding of its themes.
“Beneath the scope, the spectacle, the parkour and the thrills is a baseline for the most essential kind of human story,” they said in a joint statement featured in the January 2 Tudum article, “about people searching for purpose, struggling with questions of identity and destiny and faith… more than anything, this is a show about the value of human connection, across cultures, across time. And it’s about what we stand to lose as a species, when those connections break. We’ve got an amazing team behind us with the folks at Ubisoft and our champions at Netflix, and we’re committed to creating something undeniable for fans all over the planet.”
As yet, Netflix’s “Assassin’s Creed” series has no premiere date attached to it.
