'Assassin's Creed' movie news, premiere date: New footage features the Animus and genetic time travel concept

The "Assassin's Creed" film's premiere is just around the corner, and a new featurette explaining the story's genetic time travel concept has been released.

Just in time for the holidays, Hollywood will get another chance to prove that a video game can be adapted into a decent feature film. Despite being the most successful video game ever made, "Warcraft" didn't become a huge hit, so 20th Century Fox is now hoping that "Assassin's Creed" can finally do the trick.

Starring Michael Fassbender as Callum Lynch, "Assassin's Creed" centers on a man who is hooked up to a machine known as The Animus that enables a team of scientists to tap into his ancestors' experiences. Callum eventually learns that he is a descendant of the Assassins, a mysterious secret society. This discovery leads him to amass knowledge and skills to fight against the Templar, a strong and oppressive organization in the present day.

In the new featurette from 20th Century Fox titled "The Science of the Animus," Fassbender himself explains the concept of the Animus and how genetic time travel is a pivotal element to the whole storyline. A few action sequences from the film are also previewed in the clip.

As seen in the past teasers, a staggering amount of work has been made to create the epic battle scenes in the film. Lead actor and producer Fassbender caught up with News.com.au, and he discussed the one requirement that made the production a bit more complicated.

"It was very important for us to shoot the action sequences with the stuntmen at real live locations and not do it in a carpark or a studio with a green screen," he explained. "We wanted it to be old-school and we felt that would set it apart from a lot of films — especially nowadays, when it's so much about CGI [computer-generated imagery] and special effects," the actor went on to say.

"Assassin's Creed" will officially hit the big screen on Dec. 21.