Assassin's Creed Netflix series signs on Die Hard writer

The Assassin's Creed Netflix series will be written by Jeb Stuart, whose work you're already familiar with if you enjoy films about crawling through air ducts and stealing machine guns.

According to Variety, Netflix has tapped Die Hard writer Jeb Stuart to pen its new "genre-bending live-action adaptation" of Ubisoft's historical fiction series. Naturally, Stuart has worked on a fair few projects since Die Hard hit the screen in 1988 - perhaps most relevant to fans of the latest Assassin's Creed, that list includes Vikings: Valhalla for Netflix. He also wrote The Fugitive, establishing a solid pattern of action one-liners - though I've just learned that Tommy Lee Jones himself came up with the "I don't care!" line in that all-time great tunnel scene, so I guess we can't thank Stuart for that one.

Netflix announced the Assassin's Creed live-action series in October, with a brief teaser trailer and confirmation that a pair of Ubisoft's own entertainment leads are serving as executive producers on the project. It hasn't revealed any official details about when the series will take place or who it will be about, and Stuart is the first big announcement we've heard about the cast and crew so far.

Now, with most video game adaptations, we could jump straight to speculating about which characters will be played by whom, but the Assassin's Creed lore spans pretty much all of known history. References to the opening bars of the song Ezio's Family in the initial teaser trailer does lightly hint that it may revisit renaissance Italy, but on the other hand, that particular musical motif has also become semi-synonymous with the entire franchise, so it's far from a sure thing.

The live-action series is just one part of Netflix's deal with Ubisoft, which also covers adaptations in the form of animated series. Of course, this isn't the first time Assassin's Creed has gone live action - though if you already forgot about the 2016 film starring Michael Fassbender, you're probably not alone.

We don't know when the new series is set to debut, but if you want something new to watch it on, you should stay tuned to our Prime Day TV deals.