Ex Machina actress leaves Assassin’s Creed for new Jason Bourne movie

By Rick Marshall June 24, 2015

alicia vikander assassins creed jason bourne — Helga Esteb/Shutterstock

The upcoming Assassin’s Creed movie will need to find a new leading lady in a hurry, as Danish actress Alicia Vikander has departed the project just a month before it was expected to begin shooting.

Scheduling conflicts reportedly forced the Ex Machina actress to choose between Assassin’s Creed and the fifth installment of the Jason Bourne franchise, which is also expected to begin filming soon. According to Deadline, Vikander chose to star opposite Matt Damon in the Bourne sequel, which will be directed by Paul Greengrass and is scheduled to hit theaters July 29, 2016.

Little is known about the plot of the upcoming Bourne movie at this point, although it has been confirmed that Jeremy Renner’s character from the spinoff film The Bourne Legacy won’t be appearing in it.

The Assassin’s Creed movie, on the other hand, will be directed by Justin Kurzel and star Michael Fassbender in a big-screen adaptation of the hit game franchise. Fassbender will reportedly play a modern-day descendent of a member of a secret guild of assassins who is forced to tap into the genetic imprint of his lineage by the powerful, secret organization that has been at war with the assassins for centuries. The actor is expected to play both the contemporary version of his character and his ancestor. Assassin’s Creed is currently scheduled to hit theaters December 21, 2016.

Praised for her performance in Alex Garland’s sci-fi drama Ex Machina, Vikander will soon appear on the screen in The Man From U.N.C.L.E., as well as director Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl and Derek Cianfrance’s The Light Between Oceans, in which she’ll star opposite Fassbender. Vikander also earned rave reviews as a newcomer for her performance in Joe Wright’s 2012 film Anna Karenina, based on Leo Tolstoy’s celebrated novel about a young woman’s love affair in 19th-century Russia.

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Gaming

Assassin’s Creed Mirage takes the series back to 2007 in all the right ways

The main character of Assassin's Creed: Mirage perches on a ledge and looks out over the city of Baghdad.

Ubisoft bills Assassin’s Creed Mirage, its upcoming stealth adventure launching this October, as a return to the franchise’s roots. Go back to the original Assassin’s Creed in 2007 and you’ll find something that looks entirely different from the massive open-world of Valhalla. It was a more focused experience with an emphasis on methodic and stealthy gameplay, all taking place in Jerusalem.

Each subsequent entry would expand that existing formula while switching settings and time periods: 13th-century Italy, the American Revolutionary War, and the Golden Age of Piracy. However, 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origin transitioned the series to a much larger open-world structure in Egypt, a trend that would balloon further with 2018’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and 2020’s massive Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

Gaming

Assassin’s Creed Mirage: release date, trailers, gameplay, and more

Assassin's Creed Mirage Basim

It's time to ready your hidden blades once again, assassins, because a brand new entry in the Assassin's Creed series is upon us. All the leaks and rumors have turned out to be true, and the next installment in the franchise has been officially revealed as Assassin's Creed Mirage. This franchise has undergone some major changes in recent entries, and the next game seems poised to shake things up yet again.

First officially revealed during a Ubisoft Forward in September 2022, Assassin's Creed Mirage will be the next mainline game in the series after 2020's Assassin's Creed Valhalla. While each game typically only has smaller, less prominent ties to one another (at least after the series moved on from the Desmond arc), this game bucks the trend in that regard. From plot to gameplay changes and more, here's everything we know about Assassin's Creed Mirage, an upcoming PlayStation 5 game we have our eye on.
Release date

Gaming

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is coming out earlier than expected

Basim leaps at an enemy in Assassin's Creed Mirage.

Ubisoft revealed that Assassin's Creed Mirage will now release on October 5, a week earlier than originally intended.

Assassin's Creed Mirage is supposed to be a back-to-basics entry for Ubisoft's long-running action-adventure series. It was announced in 2022 and got an October 12 release date during the PlayStation Showcase in May. Now, just two months before the game was set to release, Ubisoft announced that it has moved the release of Assassin's Creed Mirage up by one week to October 5. This coincides with a tweet announcing that the game had "gone gold," which essentially means that development of the game is complete and Ubisoft's focus can turn to post-launch support.
https://twitter.com/Ubisoft/status/1691121970098700288
Delays are very common in this industry, and Ubisoft especially is no stranger to them; Skull & Bones is a prime example. That's why Assassin's Creed Mirage joins a rare group of games that actually come out earlier than originally expected. In 2022, we saw Xenoblade Chronicles 3 moved from September to July, while this year, Baldur's Gate 3's PC launch moved up from August 31 to August 3, which ended up being a much better release window for the game.
Although Ubisoft did not specifically state the reason for moving Assassin's Creed Mirage up, it wouldn't be surprising if the company wanted to give the game more space and attention ahead of other games coming out this October, like Forza Motorsport, Alan Wake 2, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, and Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Regardless, it's going to kick off one of the busiest months for game releases in 2023.
Assassin's Creed Mirage will launch for PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on October 5.