Tom Clancy’s The Division is one of the hottest games of the year, breaking Ubisoft’s first-day sales records and no doubt generating a wealth of cash in the process. It should come as little surprise, then, that a movie based on the game is already in the works.
Sources familiar with the matter recently told Variety that Jake Gyllenhaal has been cast to star in the film and will also serve as a producer. The search for a writer to pen the adaptation is currently underway, we're told.
For those not familiar, Tom Clancy’s The Division arrived on March 8, 2016, and was developed by Ubisoft Massive. Ubisoft served as the publisher with help from Red Storm Entertainment. The game takes place in a dystopian New York City following an outbreak of smallpox.
In it, players are tasked with rebuilding the Strategic Homeland Division in Manhattan and trying to figure out what caused the pandemic – all while maintaining order in the city. Some estimate the game generated $330 million in sales in the first five days.
If the project comes to fruition, it would be Gyllenhaal’s second game-to-movie adaptation. In 2010, he starred in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time which currently has a score of just 36 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. With any luck, a film based on The Division would garner a higher rating although historically, movies based on games aren’t really that great.
The latest example, Warcraft, debuts later this month. Early reviews, however, aren’t very hopeful as the film has a score of 26 percent on Rotten Tomatoes as of writing.
Lead image courtesy Michael Buckner, Shutterstock
