The live-action adaptation of UbiSoft’s Watch Dogs gets an exciting update as the hacker-centric film enters production.
It’s been a few months since word arrived about Talk to Me star Sophie Wilde leading the cast of Mathieu Turi’s (The Deep Dark, Meander, Hostile) Watch Dogs. The live-action adaptation of UbiSoft’s popular video game series is quietly coming together at New Regency. Still, a new update about the project shows significant movement of the hacker-centric action film.
According to Turi’s Instagram account, production on Watch Dogs is in full effect. Turi posted an image of a clapboard for Watch Dogs alongside a caption featuring a pair of curious googly eyes. With over 50 million players since the franchise began in 2014 with the release of Watch Dogs and Watch Dogs: Bad Blood, the film adaptation finds French genre filmmaker Mathieu Turi (The Deep Dark, Meander, Hostile) in the director’s chair. Turi directs Watch Dogs from a script by Christie LeBlanc, who wrote the Alexandre Aja-directed Netflix film Oxygen.
UbiSoft’s Watch Dogs franchise includes the games Watch Dogs, Watch Dogs: Bad Blood, Watch Dogs 2, Watch Dogs: Legion, and Watch Dogs: Legion – Bloodline. The franchise plot varies from game to game, though Watch Dogs generally revolves around different hacker protagonists stirring up trouble in fictionalized versions of real-life cities. Someway or another, these individuals find themselves pulled into criminal underworlds, where lawlessness reigns, and savvy computer skills could turn the tide in their quest to topple evil corporations and stick it to the man.
As you traverse the city and establish yourself as a hacker not to be f*cked with, everything from corrupt companies to crime bosses and rival hackers try to stand in your way. Your adversaries use the ctOS (central Operating System). This fictional computing network connects every electronic device in a city into a single system and stores personal information on most citizens.
With Eli Roth’s Borderlands hitting theaters on August 9, 2024, films based on chart-topping video games continue to compete for a piece of the box office. It will be a while before we see Watch Dogs on screens, but there’s no shortage of hype for a film revolving around digital infiltration, creative carnage in a crowded city, and over-the-top characters. Are you excited about Watch Dogs? Are you glad to hear the project is moving forward? Let us know in the comments section below.
About the Author
Born and raised in New York, then immigrated to Canada, Steve Seigh has been a JoBlo.com editor, columnist, and critic since 2012. He started with Ink & Pixel, a column celebrating the magic and evolution of animation, before launching the companion YouTube series Animation Movies Revisited. He’s also the host of the Talking Comics Podcast, a personality-driven audio show focusing on comic books, film, music, and more. You’ll rarely catch him without headphones on his head and pancakes on his breath.