FADE IN:

INT. BROWNISH ASSASSIN HEADQUARTERS, SPAIN

MIGUEL FASSBENDER has just been initiated into the TOP SECRET NO-TEMPLARS-ALLOWED ASSASSIN’S CLUB. He and fellow assassin ARIANE LABED stare dully into each others’ eyes.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

Nothing is true.

ARIANE LABED

Everything is permitted.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

We work in darkness to serve the light.

ARIANE LABED

Our lives do not matter, only The Creed matters.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

Yes, the Assassin’s Creed.

ARIANE LABED

The Creed.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

Creed.

ARIANE LABED

Do we ever become interesting or even particularly human, or do we just keep muttering this ponderous cult nonsense at each other?

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

I do not understand the question. Please rephrase it as a vague reference to The Creed.

ARIANE LABED

(pause)

The Creed.

OKAY THEN, let’s get five hundred years and five thousand miles away from THAT shit.

INT. YOUNG MICHAEL FASSBENDER’S HOUSE

YOUNG MICHAEL FASSBENDER arrives home to find that his MOTHER has been STABBED TO DEATH by his FATHER, YOUNG BRENDAN GLEESON.

YOUNG BRENDAN GLEESON

Sorry kid, I had to do it to make sure your mother didn’t fall into the clutches of the evil Abstergo Corporation.

YOUNG MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Oh no! I didn’t notice them outside, do they have the place surrounded?

YOUNG BRENDAN GLEESON

No, they’re still far enough out that you, a kid, will be able to successfully flee on a bicycle. And then keep off their radar for the next couple of decades, even though you never change your name or make any attempt to conceal your identity. So I’m not sure why your mother and I, highly-trained assassins, thought that death was her only means of escape.

YOUNG MICHAEL pedals tearfully off to turn into MICHAEL FASSBENDER.

INT. ABSTERGO INDUSTRIES

Years later, MICHAEL FASSBENDER wakes up in a STRANGE LAB with MARION COTILLARD staring at him.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

What’s going on? Last thing I remember I was being executed. Is this heaven? I didn’t expect heaven to look like Gattaca.

MARION COTILLARD

You didn’t die, we just faked your execution La Femme Nikita-style!

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

If you wanted to do freaky experiments on me, why go to all that trouble? Couldn't you have just thrown a bag over my head and tossed me in to the trunk of a car at any point during the last two decades?

MARION COTILLARD

Hey, when you get a secret cabal with unlimited resources, you can run it however you want. For now, I'm in charge. Now, Mister-

(checks notes)

“Lynch”? You’re not playing Desmond Miles?

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

No, and I’m sure that’ll be SO disappointing for the legions of Desmond Miles fans out there.

MARION COTILLARD

Point taken. Better to create a new character who has actual personality and isn’t just a drab generic cypher, right?

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Oh. Oh, yeah, that would’ve been the smart way to go. Oops.

MARION COTILLARD

Anyway, I’m a scientist working for the evil Abstergo Corporation. I think that society has become irretrievably corrupt, and we need to resort to extreme measures to purge the world of evil. So I’ve decided to blow up Gotham City-

(checks notes)

Um, sorry, I slipped into the wrong “crazy cultist” role for a second there. No, our actual plan is to access your genetic memories of a fifteenth-century assassin so he can tell us where to find a metal apple created by ancient proto-humans which contains the genetic code for free will.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

.............What?

MARION COTILLARD

It’s simple! By comparing your genes to Miguel Fassbender’s, we’ve been able to determine that you’re his direct descendant-

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Where the hell did you get a DNA sample for some fifteenth-century Spanish murderer?

MARION COTILLARD

-so now we just have to plug you into a futuristic machine called The Animus so we can replay your genetic memories-

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

“Genetic memories”? As in, memories from your ancestors, written into your genes? Like, “This gene encodes a protein which functions as a half-transporter to limit intestinal absorption, meanwhile this gene over here is that time your great-grandfather was so hungover he shat himself in church”?

MARION COTILLARD

(exasperated)

-until we find out what he did with the apple, NOW COME ON GET IN THE MEMORY MACHINE.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

All right fine, show me to the bed-table thing.

MARION COTILLARD

Actually for the movie version of the Animus we stab a Matrix-cable into your brain, put real weapons on your wrists, grab you around the waist with a giant claw arm and let you mime out your memories while we swing you around the room and shine spotlights in your eyes.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

...On the plus side there’s no way that could look as idiotic as it sounds.

MARION COTILLARD

You might want to check the image at the top of this script.

MARION plugs him into the MACHINE, which then PHYSICALLY RAMS HIM INTO THE PAST or something.

EXT. SPAIN, 1492

MIGUEL and some SMOKE and his fellow ASSASSINS and more SMOKE are standing on a rooftop watching through the SMOKE as an army shrouded in SMOKE fires arrows through the SMOKE at another army vaguely visible amidst the SMOKE.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

Huh, I thought the first Assassin’s Creed movie might cover the Crusades like the first game. I wasn’t expecting the Spanish-

(pelted with tomatoes)

Right, sorry. Anyway, the Sultan’s son has been kidnapped by the Knights Templar. We must save him. To protect The Creed.

ARIANE LABED

We have no personal stakes or motivations and demonstrate no feelings about what is happening. We’re just doing a thing we were told to do. Because of The Creed.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

Basically we’re giving the audience absolutely no reason to give half a fuck whether we succeed or fail or live or die. Also, The Creed.

The ASSASSINS slink into the crowd and stealthily approach the TEMPLARS who are loading the SULTAN’S SON onto a WAGON.

TEMPLAR #1

Finally we've found the prince! Our entire army couldn't break through the Sultan's defenses, but now that we're holding his son hostage, he'll have to surrender to us!

TEMPLAR #2

Wait a minute- if the Sultan's defenses are completely insurmountable, why did he hide his son with some helpless dirt farmers in the middle of nowhere?

TEMPLAR #1

Actually, there's a good reason for that, you see-

Just then MIGUEL leaps off a rooftop and STABS HIM! The rest of the ASSASSINS make their move and start slaughtering the guards!

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

Yes, that was the best way to make use of the element of surprise. Not leaping onto, say, the wagon, to rescue the kid, which is the entire point of the mission.

The WAGON takes off and the movie temporarily turns into EL RÁPIDO Y EL FURIOSO as the ASSASSINS chase the wagons THROUGH WINDING MOUNTAIN ROADS and OVER A CLIFF. Ultimately the TEMPLARS, led by HOVIK KEUCHKERIAN, capture the ASSASSINS.

HOVIK KEUCHKERIAN

Ha, gotcha! And now instead of just stabbing you all where you stand, let’s arrest you and take you to be formally executed, because if there’s anything that fits right into our scheme of kidnapping and extortion it’s due process.

INT. LAB

MICHAEL is woken out of the ANIMUS.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Wait, already? I was only in there for like five minutes. Why are we spending so much time on the framing device?

MARION COTILLARD

Well we seem to have gotten it into our heads that the boring present-day scenes that the games barely bother with are what we should be putting all of our focus on. Also, the less footage of you in borderline-offensive brownface, the better. Now go to the common room to meet the other imprisoned Assassins.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

They’re all members of the same cult of highly-trained murderers, and you let them freely congregate with almost no supervision?

DENIS MENOCHET

The man makes a good point - as the head of security for this facility, maybe I should get some locks for these doors? Or at least for the cases where we keep the fully-operable Assassin weaponry? Did we accidentally stumble into the Escape Plan abridged script?

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Hey, Denis, have we met somewhere before?

DENIS MENOCHET

I don't think so.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Really? You look so familiar to me. Huh.

MICHAEL goes and meets the other ASSASSINS just when everyone's sitting down for lunch.

MICHAEL K. WILLIAMS

Hello Michael. You can order any food you want, but I suggest the chicken. This is really a test to see if you value free will.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

In that case, I'll have a steak. Which I'm now going to have to eat with a plastic fork and knife, which should take up most of the rest of my day.

MICHAEL K. WILLIAMS

Well, since you're something of a captive audience, we've got some news for you.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

What, you're going to reveal what's going on here, and what the stakes are, offering some much-needed exposition coming from a character who would believably be able give it?

MICHAEL K. WILLIAMS

God no. Even though confiding in you right now would no doubt earn your trust and get you on our side, which is absolutely what we want, instead we're just going to be sullen and withdrawn and glare at you. That's how we roll, you see, unlike you, Michael, we all believe in The Creed.

CALLUM TURNER

We don’t like that you’re helping them find the apple. You’re betraying The Creed.

MICHELLE H. LIN

If you don’t stop helping them we may have to use force against you. To protect The Creed.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Oh Creed Creed fucking Creed, I’m sick of hearing the word “Creed”! I’m pretty sure we use the word “Creed” more often than the movie Creed, which was about a guy called Creed!

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

Hey, don’t Creed your Creed just because Creed Creed.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

MIGUEL? What are you doing out of your time period?!

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

You’re hallucinating as a side effect of the Animus! Now I will fight you for no apparent reason!

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

And I’ll fight back even though why the hell would I bother using martial arts against a figment of my imagination? I don’t even want to think about how stupid this must look to the other characters.

(flails insanely)

MARION COTILLARD

Woah, woah, break it up you two, back into the Animus I think.

She shoves MICHAEL back to SPAIN.

INT. PRISON VAN, 1492

MIGUEL, ARIANE and the other ASSASSINS are being led to their EXECUTION.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

Well this is like our one bit where we do any kind of character stuff. I think we’re supposed to be in love or something so if we want to express that in any way at all, now’s the time to do it.

ARIANE LABED

How about the only thing I say is that I’d gladly cut your heart out and eat it if it had to be done to protect The Creed.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

So we’re really just reinforcing the only character trait we’ve already established? Okay fine, I too would pound your skull in with a meat tenderizer if The Creed required me to do so.

ARIANE LABED

Yes in fact neither of us would hesitate to burn down a hospital and pick off the survivors with a sniper rifle just so long as we were following The Creed.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

We’re pretty much only the good guys in this movie because the current goals of our cult conflict with the current goals of a more unambiguously evil cult.

They get hauled out and chained up to be BURNT AT THE STAKE.

TEMPLAR #1

Say, do you think it’s any cause for concern that Miguel is loudly and obviously stomping his restraints to pieces?

TEMPLAR #2

No! CLEARLY IT IS AGAINST OUR BELIEFS TO EVER NOTICE ANYTHING SUSPICIOUS!

MIGUEL and ARIANE break free and start sprinting away across the ROOFTOPS! They climb, leap and parkour all over the place, while back in the lab MICHAEL is flung around MIMING the same actions like a SIX-YEAR-OLD PLAYING PRETEND.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

Ah, poor Michael, looking like a jackass. Out of solidarity I too will do something that looks totally stupid, say, running across a bunch of clotheslines as though they were solid stepping stones.

(does)

Yes, rope does not work that way at all, this will do very nicely for a ridiculous-looking farce.

HOVIK chases after them on horseback. Through a series of crowded, narrow, alleys. And somehow manages to stay just a few feet behind.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

Wait- Hovik Keuchkerian? Aren't you Denis Menochet, the head of security for Abstergo in the framing sequences?

HOVIK KEUCHKERIAN

No! They just cast two actors that look almost exactly alike to suggest that Denis is my descendant! It's the only subtle thing that happens in this entire movie! To underline my point, I'm now going to ride my horse up to the roof of the building you're on!

He DOES, cornering them! They're forced to jump off a ledge about THREE HUNDRED FEET HIGH!

DIRECTOR JUSTIN KURZEL

Yes, this is our big hero shot! To faithfully recreate the 'leaps of faith' from the game we actually built a ten-story platform in the middle of the desert and had a stuntman jump off it! If nothing else works in this movie, at least people will remember this iconic moment!

But since the 99% of the screen that isn't the stuntman is a CARTOONY CGI MESS the audience is unable to tell that a single real thing is happening, and as a result couldn't care less!

INT. LAB

MICHAEL jerks suddenly out of the PAST.

MARION COTILLARD

Damnit, you freaked out and got desynchronized from Miguel!

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Wait, wait a minute, HOW THE FUCK are we claiming that Miguel and Ariane survived that?! You can’t just cut away from them committing suicide and say “And then they were fine”!

JEREMY IRONS

Can too! Hello Michael, I’m Marion’s dad, head of Abstergo, and I’m here to help you with your little desynchronization problem. The thing is, we’ve been forcing you to use the Animus, but it doesn’t really work properly unless the subject goes in of his own free will. In fact it kind of fries your brain and turns you into a vegetable.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Wait, wouldn't that mean that all of the other Assassins hanging around giving me nasty looks have been co-operating with you voluntarily this whole time? Then why are they giving me so much shit?

JEREMY IRONS

Never mind consistent logic, the point is there are just two things you need to know that’ll make you willingly using the Animus and find the apple for us. 1. Your dad, the guy who murdered your mom, wanted us to not find the apple. 2. FUCK THAT GUY.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

I HATE HIM SO MUCH! If he was here, I'd stab him right in his stupid face!

JEREMY IRONS

Actually, about that...

JEREMY takes MICHAEL into the room where all the people who have been driven mad by desynchronization are kept. BRENDAN is there.

JEREMY IRONS

Here's a knife. Go nuts.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Hey dad. Despite what I said a second ago, I'm not going to kill you. I'll just insult you, hand you a knife, and then leave. I'm off to enslave humanity as a kind of belated adolescent tantrum.

DENIS MENOCHET

Wait, are we just leaving that knife in the room full of crazy people? We are? Damn, I'm not very good at my job, am I?

On the way back to the Animus chamber, MICHAEL gets JUMPED by CALLUM TURNER.

CALLUM TURNER

We Assassins don't like that you're working with Abstergo, so I've been sent to beat you to death, while all the other inmates just kind of stand back and look at the walls.

MICHAEL uses MIGUEL's skills to give CALLUM a beatdown.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Too bad you didn't all gang up on me - you might have had a chance.

CALLUM TURNER

I'm honestly not sure why we didn't. It's not like you've even got some guards with you, which would make sense since you're working with the Templars now.

DENIS MENOCHET

You think that's bad? Right now the other Michael is wandering around a room full of Assassin weapons with zero supervision. I'm the worst.

MICHAEL charges back into the ANIMUS ROOM and RE-PASTIFIES HIMSELF. He climbs into the machine SHIRTLESS this time, hoping that his sculpted muscles will distract half of the audience from how goofy it looks when a giant robot hand flings him around the room like a doll.

INT. SOME KIND OF SECRET MEETING PLACE, 1492

HOVIK KEUCHKERIAN and JAVIER GUTIERREZ about to exchange the SULTAN’S SON for the APPLE when MIGUEL and ARIANE burst in and start FIGHTING! MIGUEL gets JAVIER at KNIFEPOINT, HOORAY! But HOVIK gets ARIANE at KNIFEPOINT, BOO.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

Hey Javier, while I've got you here, you're Torquemada, and also the local Grand Master Templar, right?

JAVIER GUTIERREZ

Yup.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

Well, since you survive this scene, wouldn't there be a concrete record of exactly when and where I stole the Apple from you? Why wouldn't this be the first place Michael was sent back to?

ARIANE LABED

Ah, but if we'd done that, then no one would care about me, and be super-worried about my fate now that there's a knife to my throat.

HOVIK KEUCHKERIAN

Yeah, about that...

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

I guess I should just retrieve the apple now and never mind your mortal peril, as my resolute sense of duty is all the characterisation they’ve given me.

ARIANE LABED

Indeed. For you to hesitate out of fear for my life would be utterly false, as the closest thing we’ve had to romance so far is us firmly agreeing that our own lives don’t matter a tinker’s damn.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

But I will in fact hesitate, proving that it's actually possible to write a character inconsistently even if he only has one personality trait.

ARIANE LABED

Amateur. This is how it’s done.

(kills self)

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

Noooooo.

(pause)

The Creed.

MIGUEL gets the APPLE and RUNS OFF and takes it to a meeting with GABRIEL ANDREU.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

So I have it. The artefact which contains the genetic code for free will, which the Templars want even though this is 1492 and they haven't even figured out indoor plumbing yet. Since the apple has utterly no use to us Assassins I don’t see why I don’t just throw it in a volcano and be done with it, but instead I'll entrust it to you for safe keeping. Swear to me that you'll have it buried with you.

GABRIEL ANDREU

I so swear. For the Creed.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

Well, that's a load off my mind. Now the Apple will be lost forever, since it's not like you'll ever be rich or famous enough to have a well-known burial site that could be easily robbed, will you... CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS?!?

GABRIEL ANDREU

What a weird thing to say. Anyhoo, this Apple thingy holds the secrets to stripping people of free will, right?

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

Yup.

GABRIEL ANDREU

In that case, I think you've chosen the right man for the job.

(cackles nefariously)

GABRIEL heads to the NEW WORLD, and the audience notes that MIGUEL just turned over a mind control device to one of the most BRUTAL SLAVERS of his time.

MIGUEL FASSBENDER

Are we absolutely sure that the Assassins are the good guys?

INT. LAB

MARION COTILLARD

Hey, Jeremy, now that I've gotten you everything you need to carry out your plan, I feel like this is a perfect time to bring up my serious objections to it.

JEREMY IRONS

That seems a little hypocritical, given what you've spent your entire career working on.

MARION COTILLARD

What are you talking about? You want to strip free will from humanity using alien science or possibly magic, we never really say what the apple is. I, on the other hand, just want to use genetic engineering to breed violence and aggression out of existence, transforming humans into an easily-controlled race of slaves. That's completely different!

JEREMY IRONS

Look, there'll be plenty of time to argue about this on the way to steal a magic apple out of a guy's cold, dead hand.

(they leave)

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Oh no, we can’t let Jeremy use the apple! I’ve changed my mind about helping the Templars, because the Animus has suddenly flipped out and created a hologram of my mom, as well as a bunch of other ancestors including Assassin Marion I think?

MICHAEL K. WILLIAMS

Meanwhile us other Assassins have grabbed some of those weapons that were basically just lying all over the place and started a rebellion! We were gonna kill you, Michael, but then we saw all those holograms hanging out with you so now you’re our leader for some reason!

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Seriously, what is even going on in this scene.

DENIS MENOCHET

Quickly, guards, subdue the Assassins! But restrict yourselves to only wielding the kind of archaic weaponry that they're far more skilled at fighting with than we are! Seriously, how do I still have a job?

MICHAEL and the ASSASSINS all ESCAPE. Except for MICHAEL K. WILLIAMS, who gets stabbed to death.

MICHAEL K. WILLIAMS

Oh sure, kill the black guy.

Oh right. What we meant to say is, MICHELLE H. LIN gets stabbed to death.

MICHELLE H. LIN

Are you kidding? I'm an Asian woman, I provide TWO diversity points!

Okay whatever, MICHAEL K. WILLIAMS and MICHELLE H. LIN are fine but CALLUM TURNER gets stabbed to death!!!

CALLUM TURNER

Wait wait, I'm sure I provide some demographic that Fassbender hasn't already covered... uh... I'm the only one here whose name isn't some variation on "Michael"?

CALLUM TURNER. GETS. STABBED. TO. DEATH.

CALLUM TURNER

Shit.

(dies)

Also BRENDAN stabs a bunch of guards with the knife that MICHAEL gave him.

DENIS MENOCHET

God damn it!

INT. TEMPLAR HEADQUARTERS

JEREMY has brought the APPLE to show off to all the TEMPLAR LEADERS.

JEREMY IRONS

Our preliminary studies have demonstrated that the Apple is constructed from an entirely new kind of ferrous metal. Since I discovered it, I've decided to name it... Jeremy's Iron.

Meanwhile outside the ASSASSINS are preparing for an EPIC SHOWDOWN.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

(sheathing fifty throwing knives)

All right, the head Templars all gathered in one place, and the Assassins gearing up for the attack, this’ll be awesome!

MICHAEL K. WILLIAMS

(stringing bow, filling quiver with arrows)

Yes, with the extensive lock-and-load montage that’s going on here you just know this is gonna be one hell of a fight!

MICHELLE H. LIN

(sharpening eight swords)

Can’t wait to see how this fuckton of blades we’re preparing will skirt their way around the PG-13 rating!

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Awright! Now with everybody amped up for this fight, you guys wait outside while we don't do the fight.

(heads in alone)

MICHAEL walks right up to MARION in the middle of a room that you'd think would have security or surveillance of some kind.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

I'm going to go and kill your dad. I've got no reason to warn you about that, and you doing anything other than standing absolutely still for the next minute would have a good chance of ruining my plan.

MARION COTILLARD

I understand.

(decides this would be a great time to take part in the mannequin challenge)

MICHAEL runs in, cuts JEREMY’S THROAT, grabs the APPLE and runs away. DENIS, who is apparently the only security guard on the scene, does nothing to stop him.

DENIS MENOCHET

Seriously? After everything that's happened, I'm still not carrying a gun? At this point I'm starting to suspect I might be a mole for the Assassins.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Now it's time for an awesome escape from the belly of the beast!

MICHAEL walks out of the building along with all of the TEMPLARS, who behave as if this was a Monday-afternoon fire drill.

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Wait, that was it? Seriously? After all that buildup, that was the entire climax of the movie?

MARION COTILLARD

Don’t worry Michael, you’ll get your payoff next movie, because I am so enraged at my father’s murder that I will have my REVENGE, in the sequel which will inevitably come after this film takes the box office by storm!

MICHAEL FASSBENDER

Uh huh, sure.

(dumps weapons in trash)

(goes home)

END.