Ubisoft’s movie adaptation of The Division with Jake Gyllenhaal may never see the light of day, much to the dismay of fans. Video game movies and TV shows are all the rage these days and it’s hard to imagine that slowing down anytime soon. Ubisoft has made a few attempts at adaptations in the past. Some never saw the light of day, others crashed and burned, and some have been in a state of limbo. One of the lingering titles on the slate is The Division, a film adaptation of the online survival game set in America following a pandemic. There’s no zombies or anything like that, but it did ravage society and turn people into monsters, creating a total collapse in major cities like New York City and Washington D.C.. The film was announced a number of years ago with Netflix as the distributor and Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead role, but it has been quiet ever since. It was expected to start filming in 2022, but it doesn’t seem like that happened.
Speaking with DiscussingFilm, 87North Productions co-founder and movie producer Kelly McCormick had a disappointing update on the film adaptation. McCormick noted that the producers on The Division left the film behind following COVID due to the premise feeling too heavy at the moment. She noted that they “could find love for it” again and still loves the idea, but heard that it’s “sort of on the back burner” at the moment. Whether McCormick and her crew will return to it or someone else will take over remains to be seen, but it seems like it’s a distant reality at best right now.
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“To be honest, when COVID hit, we leftย The Divisionย because it felt like it was a documentary,” said McCormick. “You know, in the sense that the story deals with this outbreak that happens in real-time, the dangers that occur, and the anxiety that it creates. It was like, “Whoa, this is no longer fun.” Like, we literally all just had to go through this in real life. I think we could find love for it again. It’s such a cool property and what you could do with the imagery of a team of agents coming in with that kind of post-apocalyptic prospect is really amazing, but we actually did end up letting it go because we got moved away by COVID.”
Ubisoft is still cooking up adaptations of games like Assassin’s Creed with Netflix, however. Given that partnership is still very much there, it could mean there’s hope for a movie adaptation of The Division. Nevertheless, it’s still disappointing to hear it might not happen.
Do you want to see The Division adapted into a movie? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
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