The scramble to turn every videogame into a movie is now in full swing, and another film adaptation has just been announced: this time it's Riders Republic, Ubisoft's 2021 open world extreme sports sandbox. The game didn't have much of a plot beyond competing in biking, skiing, snowboarding, and wingsuiting races and competitions, so if Ubisoft thinks they can turn that into a movie…
Yeah, I'd probably watch it. Wouldn't you watch it? I like seeing people do bike flips and ski jumps and snowboard… things. Who doesn't love seeing someone jump off a cliff in a wingsuit? It's rad.
I didn't play a ton of Riders Republic but the Alps are pretty and stunts are fun, so why the heck not shoot a movie combining them? If they can keep the film to a tight 90 minutes, maybe cram in a throwaway plot where a local extreme sports hero has to defeat an evil snowboarding coalition to save a community center, I'm on board.
Directing the film, says Ubisoft, are the "famous Belgian duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah," who I've never heard of but who made films like Bad Boys for Life (didn't see it) and Bad Boys: Ride or Die (didn't see it).
The pair also directed 2022's Batgirl, starring Leslie Grace, Brendan Fraser, J.K. Simmons, and Michael Keaton—which I didn't even get the chance to not see because Warner Bros decided it was more profitable to write the film off as a tax break than release it. Brutal. Writing Riders Republic is screenwriter Noé Debré who won a Palme d'Or for the French film Dheepan (didn't see it) in 2015.
The track record for Ubisoft film adaptations is… mixed, I guess you'd say. At one end of the scale is Uwe Boll's notoriously stinky Far Cry film from 2008, in the "so-so" region you've got some bland attempts at adaptations like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and 2016's Assassin's Creed. The best, I think, is horror comedy Werewolves Within, based on the social deduction VR game published by Ubisoft.
Ubi has a bunch more movies and TV shows based on its properties in the works, including Splinter Cell, The Division, Ghost Recon, Watch Dogs, and Beyond Good & Evil. There's even a Skull & Bones TV show in development, or at least there was: it was announced before the actual game came out to a less-than enthusiastic reception.
