The Splinter Cell remake we were promised three years ago is still nowhere to be seen, but Sam Fisher is making a comeback of sorts on Netflix, in a new animated series called Deathwatch.
There’s not much to see, really. Sam Fisher, now rocking a grandfatherly beard, is sinking in the drink, although he seems remarkably unfussed by the situation. The flashback to the funeral of his old pal Doug Shetland, though, suggests he may be subconsciously grappling with regret, for reasons I will not spoil here.
Despite the dearth of information in the trailer, there is one little bit of it I take issue with:
Because no. No, he’s not. Liev Schreiber is a great actor, seems like a cool guy, but Michael Ironside is Sam Fisher.
The gravel. The gravitas. Ironside is still so perfect, which makes Schreiber’s casting all the stranger. This isn’t one of those situations where the game character’s actor primarily does videogame work, and therefore wouldn’t fit in an animated project. Ironside was a Hollywood veteran long before becoming Sam Fisher, playing memorable roles in films like Top Gun, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers.
And, for the record, Michael Ironside is still alive and still active. You might recall that he had to step away from acting for a time while battling cancer, which is why he couldn’t return for 2013’s Splinter Cell Blacklist, but he did reprise the role in Ghost Recon Wildlands later.
Which leads me to wonder, why did Ubisoft not opt to bring him back for Deathwatch? I suppose Schreiber might be more recognizable to mainstream audiences, but he’s not exactly a household name; neither is Ironside, fair enough (although a small but insistent part of me wants to argue that yes he is), but I feel like his presence would at least fire up the long-suffering Splinter Cell fan base, which would in itself be an attention-getting win for the series.
It’s possible I’m being weird about this, but it also makes me worry that Ironside will also be excluded from the Splinter Cell remake, assuming it ever actually happens. That would be a much more serious transgression. For now, I’m calming myself by assuming that Ironside didn’t do the Netflix series because he’s too busy working on the next game. That makes sense, right?
Splinter Cell: Deathwatch is being co-directed by Guillaume Dousse and Félicien Colmet-Daage, while Derek Kolstad, who wrote the original John Wick, is serving as head writer and co-executive producer, along with Helene Juguet, Hugo Revon and Gerard Guillemot. A release date hasn’t been announced, but it’s “coming soon.”
I’ve reached out to Netflix and Ubisoft to ask about this egregious Ironside oversight, and will update if I receive a reply.
