Tradecraft: Another Tom Clancy Property Might Become a Movie

Deadline reports that videogame publisher Ubisoft is talking to studios hoping to develop the Tom Clancy game franchise Splinter Cell into a film. Paramount is seen as the frontrunner, as they are already home to Clancy's Jack Ryan franchise (the latest reboot of which seems perpetually in limbo) and have spent decades developing Without Remorse. The Splinter Cell series revolves around Sam Fisher, top covert operative for an ultra-secret U.S. spy agency known as Third Echelon. He's basically licensed to kill, which makes it particularly appropriate that former James Bond continuation author Raymond Benson wrote two novels in the series of Clancy-endorsed paperback originals based on the game, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and Operation Barracuda. The books, told in the first person, are well worth seeking out for fans of Benson's Bond novels, but probably won't serve as the basis for a film version. According to the trade blog, "Ubisoft will be very involved and retain control over how the game is translated into a film."