In 2013, producer Basil Iwanyk, who had signed on to produce ‘Splinter Cell,’ confirmed that the previously announced live-action cinematic adaptation was no longer moving forward.
According to Iwanyk, the Tom Hardy-led movie was shelved because they “couldn’t get it right”:
“‘That movie would have been awesome… Just couldn’t get it right, script-wise, budget-wise. But it was going to be great. We had a million different versions of it, but it was going to be hardcore and awesome. That’s one of the ones that got away, which is really sad.”
‘Splinter Cell’ is an iconic game series that centers around covert ops super-spy Sam Fisher, who works for the fictional agency Third Echelon, an offshoot of the NSA. The first entry in the series was released in 2002 as an Xbox exclusive and spawned seven different games.
The film adaptation was first reported to be in development by Deadline in 2012, with news later that year revealing that Tom Hardy was in talks to play Sam Fisher.
In 2014, it was announced that Doug Liman, the director of ‘Edge of Tomorrow,’ would helm the PG-13 action-packed movie, which was to be produced by Ubisoft and New Regency.
Throughout the 2010s, multiple updates on shooting schedules were made, but each one ultimately missed its target.
