It took a while to get here, but filming has wrapped on Ubisoft and New Regency's Watch Dogs movie. The film adaptation was first announced in 2013 but underwent multiple delays and was basically stuck in Hollywood purgatory for the better part of the past decade.
However, under the direction of French filmmaker Mathieu Turi (The Deep Dark), filming began on the movie back in July. Less than three months later, Ubisoft announced on social media today that filming is now complete.
The video game publisher celebrated the major milestone with a photo of director Mathieu Turi on location filming a scene from the movie. "run film_wrapped.exe(#watchdogsmovie.mp4)," the publisher tweeted in reference to the franchise's focus on hacking and programming.
We still don't know much about the movie other than it will feature an original story that's inspired by the video game franchise. Tom Blyth (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) and Sophie Wilde (Talk to Me) are set to star in the film, though their characters are still being kept under wraps.
Watch Dogs is one of Ubisoft's more well-known and successful video game franchises. There have been three games released to date: Watch Dogs (2014), Watch Dogs 2 (2016), and Watch Dogs: Legion (2020). While each game typically involves its own standalone story, they all revolve around the same premise; a hacker protagonist gets caught up in a criminal underworld, taking on corrupt companies, crime bosses, and rival hackers. Ubisoft describes its Watch Dogs franchise:
"Each game features different stories in a world where hacker rebels attempt to fight injustices enabled by CTOS, a digital information system that links entire cities onto a single network. From Aiden Pearce in Chicago to Marcus Holloway in San Francisco to citizens in a dystopic London, members of the DedSec hacker organization use their advanced hacking apps and gadgets to undermine CTOS' oppressive reign and uncover corruption behind the system."
2014's Watch Dogs kicked off the franchise with a story that followed hacker/vigilante Aiden Pearce's quest for revenge after the killing of his niece. The game was set in a fictionalized version of Chicago.
2016's Watch Dogs 2 took us to a city inspired by San Francisco and followed a hacker by the name of Marcus Holloway who worked with the underground hacking group DedSec to take down the city's advanced surveillance system. Watch Dogs: Legion is the most recent game in the series, released in 2020. Set in a futuristic, dystopian London, the story follows the hacker syndicate DedSec as they attempt to clear their names after being framed for a series of terrorist bombings. The game differed from the first two in that it allowed you to play as literally anyone you come across in the city.
Watch Dogs is the latest in a string of adaptations based on popular video game franchises. The results have been mixed. Some notable successful adaptations include HBO's The Last of Us television series and Paramount Pictures' Sonic the Hedgehog movies. But not every studio has had good fortune with its adaptations. Warner Bros. Borderlands movie was a massive flop, grossing just $32 million worldwide against a production budget that exceeded $100 million.
Are you excited about the movie adaptation of Ubisoft's Watch Dogs franchise?