• Ubisoft has said that filming for its movie adaptation of Watch Dogs has begun.
• The film will star Tom Blyth and Sophie Wild but precious few other details about the movie are known.
• The film will be directed by Mathieu Turi and produced by New Regency’s Yariv Milchan.

In a bid to expand its business, Ubisoft has been dipping its toes into media outside of games. The company is the driving force behind the likes of Mythic Quest and Werewolves Within. Unfortunately it also produced Assassin’s Creed in 2016 which was, shall we say, poorly received.

That didn’t dissuade Ubisoft though and last month the company announced that the upcoming Watch Dogs movie is still happening.

On Wednesday, the developer announced that filming had begun.

The film adaptation of the Watch Dogs universe will tell an original story and will star Tom Blyth (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) and Sophie Wild (Talk to Me). Director Mathieu Turi (The Deep Dark) is at the helm here and Christie LeBlanc (Oxygen) wrote the screenplay with Victoria Bata adding revisions. New Regency’s Yariv Milchan and Natalie Lehmann will produce alongside Ubisoft Film & Television’s Margaret Boykin.

The movie will likely focus on the hacking collective from the games known as DedSec with the CTOS likely forming a core part of the story as well. Given the nature of the games, we’re expecting something more akin to Hackers from the 90s with bombastic displays of hacker battles and technology with capabilities far beyond what is currently available. Of course this is just us guessing as details about the movie are thin on the ground at the moment.

As for the Watch Dogs games franchise, that seems to have all but been forgotten by Ubisoft. The last game in the series, Watch Dogs: Legion didn’t perform too badly. It sold well in its first week in the UK and critics gave the game an average score of 7/10.

We quite enjoyed it, especially as it was a departure from the formula Ubisoft had used until then. Unfortunately the game released weeks before Cyberpunk 2077 so it was quickly eclipsed by the discourse surrounding that game.

With production having just started on the Watch Dogs film, it may be a while before we get a trailer or a teaser. With that having been said, unless Ubisoft announces a new game in the franchise in the coming weeks, this movie might be the only things Watch Dogs fans get for a while.