Tom Hardy signs on for ‘Splinter Cell’ movie

If the casting decisions for the upcoming "Assassin's Creed" and "Splinter Cell" movies have proved anything, it's that French video game publisher Ubisoft is not messing around when it comes to the big screen adaptations of company's game properties.

Deadline is reporting that "The Dark Knight Rises" star Tom Hardy has signed on to play the lead in "Splinter Cell," an action thriller based on Ubisoft's Tom Clancy-branded stealth espionage franchise of the same name. The "Splinter Cell" games follow elite American agent Sam Fisher as he is dispatched on highly sensitive covert missions around the world. Armed with an array of silenced weapons, multi-spectrum goggles, and other gadgets, Fisher gets the job done quietly and efficiently — in stark contrast to most modern video game protagonists. Hardy will play Fisher in the movie version.

The Tom Clancy series has a number of major Canadian connections: the Sam Fisher character was voiced by Canuck tough guy Michael Ironside for most of the series, and the sixth "Splinter Cell" game, titled "Blacklist," is being developed right here in Canada at the newly-formed Ubisoft Toronto studios.

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This is the second major casting coup for Ubisoft, who earlier this year signed Michael Fassbender ("X-Men: First Class," "Prometheus") to play the lead in and co-produce the movie adaptation of the company's "Assassin's Creed" game. Nabbing in-demand actors like Hardy and Fassbender is all part of the game publisher's new approach to video game movies.

After the critical and financial failure of the Disney-produced "Prince of Persia" film in 2010, Ubisoft took a step back from the movie business to re-evaluate options. Instead of giving up the film rights to their games and having no real control over the final product, the company instead decided to take a more proactive role in any future film based on one of their flagship titles. To do so, the company started their own film production wing, called Ubisoft Motion Pictures. With decade's worth of subpar films based on video games, can Ubisoft really be blamed for this bold new approach?

Hardy coming on board "Splinter Cell" is great news for video game movies in general, but the casting may seriously complicate things in Hollywood — particularly at Paramount Pictures. The studio has been producing movies based on author Tom Clancy's books for years, and is currently in the process of rebooting the Jack Ryan franchise made famous by films like "The Hunt for Red October" and "Clear and Present Danger." Actor Chris Pine is set to play Ryan in the movie, and former leading man Kevin Costner recently joined the pic in the role of a mentor to the junior CIA officer. Paramount also planned for Costner's character to appear in a spinoff film based on the Clancy novel "Without Remorse," featuring recurring Clancy-verse character John Clark. Another covert operative, Clark was previously played on screen by Willem Dafoe (in "Clear and Present Danger") and Liev Schreiber (in "The Sum of All Fears"), but the studio had a new actor in mind for "Without Remorse": Tom Hardy. Uh oh.

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So, will Hardy play both Clark and Fisher or give up one to play the other? The two Clancy characters happens to share many attributes -- namely their rather dirty line of work -- making it doubtful that Hardy would want to play such similar roles. Ubisoft doesn't have a major studio partner for "Splinter Cell," but has reportedly been in talks with Paramount, which would make sense given that studio's long history with the Clancy brand. Could an Ubisoft, Paramount, and Clancy deal be in the works to combine the characters and films? Or will Paramount simply find another actor to play Clark in "Without Remorse" and turn Ubisoft into the competition?