The long dormant Splinter Cell movie set to star Tom Hardy is officially dead, according to the film’s producer (in case you didn’t already make that conclusion on your own). Splinter Cell is one of the most beloved video game franchises out there and there have been numerous attempts to adapt it already. Famously, there was a teaser for a Splinter Cell movie included on the disc for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, but it didn’t include any real specific details, let alone who would be playing the famed spy.
In the early 2000s, Friday Night Lights and Lone Survivor director Peter Berg was tapped to direct the film. In a 2005 interview with IGN, he noted he was eyeing the likes of Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russel, Eric Bana, and The Punisher actor Thomas Jane to play Sam Fisher himself. Obviously, this never happened.
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In 2012, it was announced Tom Hardy would ultimately play Sam Fisher and it was later confirmed that Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow) would direct the film. After a decade of little to no notable updates, many naturally assumed the film went dead. However, there was some hope that it could live on following the success of other recent gaming adaptations like The Last of Us. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like that’s the case. Producer Basil Iwanyk told TheDirect the Splinter Cell movie is officially dead and it was put to rest after the creative team “couldn’t get it right”. Iwanyk spoke highly of what they had developed, however, noting how great it would’ve been had it gotten to see the light of day.
“‘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 as a franchise has struggled a lot since 2013. Splinter Cell: Blacklist was the last game in the series to release and was unfortunately sandwiched between big games like Saints Row 4 and Grand Theft Auto V on top of releasing ahead of the new consoles, which were not backward compatible at the time. It’s a game that was received well and is looked back on quite fondly, but it struggled commercially at the time. In 2021, a remake of the original game was announced. It had only just entered development at that time, so naturally, there hasn’t been a ton of updates since then. There were rumors it was canceled however, it is expected to still be in the works and hopefully, we’ll see it again in the near future.
Sam Fisher has lived on in other projects such as Ghost Recon: Wildlands and Rainbow Six: Siege, but those are obviously not exactly what fans want for the character. In terms of adaptations, there’s been no word on any other live-action efforts such as a film or new TV series. However, there is an animated Splinter Cell TV show coming to Netflix in 2025. Liev Schreiber will play Sam Fisher in this version of the series, but not much else is known about the project. As of right now, it’s unclear if Schreiber will be the new voice of Sam Fisher going forward for future games like the remake or if Ubisoft plans to bring Michael Ironside back. Ironside was notably left out of Blacklist, but returned for the Ghost Recon: Wildlands content.
Splinter Cell isn’t the only spy franchise struggling to make it to the big screen. Metal Gear Solid has similarly been stuck in cinematic development hell for many, many years. It seemed like it was going to happen after Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts started making huge headway on the project, even offering up concept art for the project to the public at one point. Oscar Isaac was cast as Solid Snake as well, but reports suggest he has dropped out of the film. It was confirmed earlier this year that the film is still in the works, though it’s unclear who is still attached to make it.