Ubisoft has announced that director David Leitch (Deadpool 2) has signed on to helm Ubisoft’s The Division film, starring Oscar nominees Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler, Stronger) and Jessica Chastain (Molly’s Game, Zero Dark Thirty). Gyllenhaal and Chastain have been with the project since the beginning of development and have been persistent in making sure that it matches the tone of the video game that inspired it.
The Division is set in a version of New York City decimated by a pandemic virus spread through cash exchanged all over the city on Black Friday. As Christmas draws near and the city descends into chaos, a group of civilians trained to respond to the crisis is activated to save the city.
Jake Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker of Nine Stories along with Jessica Chastain and Kelly Carmichael of Freckle Films, and David Leitch and Kelly McCormick of 8711 are also producing the film with Ubisoft Motion Pictures.
Leitch is also set to direct the Fast and Furious spinoff starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham. Since the Universal spinoff is slated to begin production this fall, Leitch will hopefully begin prep on The Division some time in 2019.
Tom Clancy’s The Division video game is an online-only action role-playing third-person shooter that quickly became the fastest-selling new IP in video game history after launching in 2016. It was developed by Ubisoft’s video game development studio Massive Entertainment with assistance from Red Storm Entertainment and Ubisoft Annecy for Microsoft Windows, PS4, and Xbox One. After recently reaching the milestone of 20 million players, a sequel, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, was announced in development from Massive Entertainment.
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