Assassin's Creed film shares first stills, one year out from release

New stills from the upcoming Assassin's Creed movie have trickled out ahead of next year's Dec. 21 premiere. Both Empire and Entertainment Weekly have shared screens of star Michael Fassbender and his castmate Ariane Labed in action, with the latter site talking to Fassbender about his role as Callum Lynch.

The Oscar-nominated actor signed onto the project back in 2012, despite his lack of hands-on experience with the game, he told Entertainment Weekly.

"I've played it since [being offered the job] mainly to get an idea of the physicality of the character," he said, although the website hints that his playtime has been limited — which makes sense, given that production remains ongoing.

Fassbender hasn't been shy about his relative disinterest in gaming in the past. Speaking to IGN in 2014, back when the film was still scheduled for an August 2015 release, he explained that his excitement for the project came from Ubisoft's explanation of the world, despite his minimal video game experience.

That's probably well and good, considering that the adaptation is more based on the franchise as a whole than any one entry. Even so, it does feature many familiar characters and share the series' canonical universe.

Static shots are all we have of Fassbender as an assassin thus far, but a trailer release may be upon us next spring. A recent teaser site based on the series' Abstergo Industries launched to include a hint about the first footage premiere, however. Calling a phone number discretely given out by the movie's official Twitter account lets you listen in on the answering machine of CEO Alan Rikkin, played by Jeremy Irons, which seems to suggest that a trailer will be included with March's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Correction: Co-star Ariane Labed is featured in the above screen with Michael Fassbender. The post has been amended to correct the error.