The Division: Agent Origins Film Writer And Director Announced

Ubisoft Motion Pictures announced today that Stephen Gaghan will write and direct the movie adaptation of The Division. Gaghan is an Academy Award-winning writer and director, and he is the third big name attached to the project. The other two are Academy Award nominees Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Chastain.

Stephen Gaghan received his Oscar for writing the movie “Traffic”, and another nomination for “Syriana”, which he both wrote and directed. Gerard Guillemot, Chief Executive Officer at Ubisoft Motion Pictures, said that they’re “very excited to bring Stephen’s unique vision of the game to film audiences”. Vice President and Head of Development Matt Phelps lauded Gaghan’s talent and passion, saying that he can’t wait for Gaghan to bring the world of The Division to life.

Stephen Gaghan had this to say.

I’m excited to work with Ubisoft Motion Pictures and collaborate with their team at Massive Entertainment to bring The Division to the big screen… The game has been an enormous success, in large part due to the visual landscape they created, their vision of a mid-apocalyptic Manhattan. It’s immersive, wonderfully strange, and yet familiar, filled with possibilities. It’s also remarkable to be able to collaborate with Jessica Chastain and Jake Gyllenhaal early in the process. We all feel the story Ubisoft created is more relevant than ever.

Ubisoft Motion Pictures will develop the movie together with Nine Stories and Freckle Films. Said companies belong to Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Chastain, respectively. Having such big names in the production sounds encouraging. However, best to keep in mind the video game movie track record. So far, most of them have been pretty terrible, at least according to critics. Sure, some might make a lot of money, like World of Warcraft did. Most of them have been box office bombs, though. With the Assassin’s Creed movie struggling to earn back enough money, Ubisoft Motion Pictures better make this one count.