Netflix to premiere Splinter Cell Deathwatch on Oct 14

Netflix will premiere Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Deathwatch, an adult animated spy thriller, on October 14, bringing the stealth video game hero Sam Fisher back into the field in an eight episode series produced with Ubisoft. Liev Schreiber voices an older, retired Fisher who is pulled out of seclusion in Eastern Europe to help a wounded young operative, setting off a globe-spanning conspiracy tied to a powerful technology company and Fisher's own past.

The series, created and executive produced by Derek Kolstad, best known as the architect of the John Wick films, adapts elements from Ubisoft's long-running Splinter Cell games and ancillary novels while telling an original story set decades after the games. Kolstad said Netflix allowed him to "do Old Man Sam" and to treat the games and tie-in material as Fisher's canonical past for the show. He added that he hopes the series will be considered part of the franchise canon but acknowledged that Ubisoft retains broader plans and approvals.

In Deathwatch Fisher is drawn back to the clandestine U.S. unit Fourth Echelon after a young agent, Zinnia McKenna, seeks him out with a damaged watch that contains blueprints for a potentially...