Teased last September during Geeked Week, the animated TV series “Splinter Cell: Deathwatch” was the first Netflix title to be teased at the Annecy Animation Festival today.
An Ubisoft TV & Film Division project co-produced by Æsten and Fost Animation studios, the series dives deep into what made the “Splinter Cell” franchise successful: gritty realism, a stealth/espionage setting and geopolitical warfare.
Showcasing never-before-seen footage of the upcoming series, Ubisoft, Æsten and Fost teams presented their project to a captivated Annecy audience in the packed yet cozy setting of Salle Pierre Lamy.
What is “Splinter Cell”? Directly inspired by the works of American novelist Tom Clancy, the “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell” series launched in 2002 with the first video game iteration of the franchise, created by Ubisoft. The French studio, which had already launched another franchise based on Clancy’s “Rainbow Six,” captivated the video game community with harsh, riveting infiltration-based gameplay infused with geopolitical warfare and a highly cinematic approach. With six games published from 2002 to 2013 and more than 30 million units sold worldwide to date, “Splinter Cell” has become one of Ubisoft’s major brands, spanning across video games, tie-in novels and now an upcoming animated TV series.
An animated thriller for adults is what Hugo Revon, director of development and producer at Ubisoft Film & Television, was aiming for with this series. The project started back in 2020 with the objective of appealing beyond video game or animation fans, targeting mainstream audiences and techno-thriller enthusiasts. “The Splinter Cell universe is deeply rooted in realism,” said Revon during this WIP session. “Yet animation allows our team to go further, creating intense atmospheres and traveling throughout Europe in this gripping and modern sequel to the games. What would Sam Fisher be today and in the near future? That is the idea that drove us forward, writing this series.”
‘Splinter Cell: Deathwatch’
Credit: Netflix
Along with an older version of Splinter Cell’s iconic hero Sam Fisher, voiced by Liev Schreiber, the team led by directors Guillaume Dousse (“Flee”) and Félicien Colmet-Daâge (“The Summit of the Gods”) will take the audience into a near future where authenticity is key in bringing this universe to screen.
“Think Michael Mann meets Satoshi Kon,” explained Dousse, “with action inspired by our co-creator and writer Derek Kolstad (‘John Wick’). I played a lot of infiltration games in my youth, and ‘Splinter Cell’ has a deep connection with cinema that appealed to me. Our project has been influenced by the game’s lighting, designs and narrative pace, which make for great action sequences combined with moments of slow-paced, tense infiltration bits.”
He went on, “Being able to bring this forth with great animation teams, an incredible cast led by Liev and original music by ‘Tokyo Vice’/’Enemy’ duo Danny Bensi & Saunder Jurriaans is something wonderful.”
Although set in the near future, authenticity was key for Ubisoft’s teams, as detailed by Carl Tamakloe, development associate producer at Ubisoft Film & Television. “Since 2002, the world has evolved, and that is something that we wanted to integrate from the start. Technology has turned old strategies into hybrid warfare with fake news, energy challenges and corporate involvement.”
“It’s a whole new world that Sam has to navigate in our project. We also wanted to turn this US-centered saga into a European-centric thriller, which is why we chose the road trip format to tell this 8-episode story. It felt like a good way to immerse our viewers into known settings with a brand new adventure,” he added
To convey this high level of realism, the team turned to French Fost Studio, whose work on the acclaimed manga adaptation “The Summit of the Gods” by Patrick Imbert made them one of the prominent studios handling realistic animation in Europe.
Co-director Félicien Colmet-Daâge, who was animation director for Imbert, expanded on the ambition to keep reality as close as possible to the production process: “Our main challenge was to keep the same quality we had achieved on ‘The Summit of the Gods,’ but deliver almost twice as much footage. Creating this series brings together 250 people split into 13 teams, with a 15-step pipeline and roughly 4,000 shots. That was a leap of faith for us.”
“Emphasizing key steps such as posing, 3D integrations and backgrounds helped us achieve this level of quality while also relying heavily on photographs. Every shot of the show has been reproduced by us as a photograph so we could then turn them into the most believable animation,” he went on. “Bringing all our department heads into these photo shoots allowed us to infuse team spirit, emulation and creativity that stimulated us and our teams.”
Gaëlle Thierry, Animation Supervisor, also brought her experience from acclaimed features such as “Mars Express” and “The Summit of the Gods” to the project. “Regarding animation, it was important for us to avoid anime-like extravagance and distorted movements,” Thierry detailed while diving into the show’s animation process. “Rotoscopy was also something we quickly turned away from, as it leads to characters losing weight in their actions and brings a distinct feel to the overall animation.”
“We chose to focus instead on straight action lines, detailed character animation and expressions, along with incorporating many ‘useless movements.’ The kind of stuff you don’t usually see in the economy-driven ecosystem of animated series production. Yet with this project, it felt right to bring life and depth to our characters with these tiny details that make them truly human,” he added.
“Animating reality is something that you have to be completely conscious of,” added Thierry. “This type of animation is quite recent in the French industry, and before ‘The Summit of the Gods,’ I had little experience in that area. It’s a dense process of unlearning what you’ve always done with cartoonish animated style and re-learning how to observe life and draw from it directly. We had to nurture this approach within our teams, and I’m very happy to be part of this new creative journey.”
“From early on, we knew this project would shine best in the series format,” concluded Hugo Revon. “The slow pace and atmosphere of this techno-thriller are a perfect match with the beats that one can implement into a show’s structure. I’m truly delighted to work with Netflix on bringing back the ‘Splinter Cell’ universe to the screen. This franchise redefined stealth action in the 2000s, and I can’t wait to share this premium TV series with the public.”
“Splinter Cell: Deathwatch” is scheduled to release exclusively on Netflix this fall.
