Since 2016, it has been known that Ubisoft wants to make a movie about their pandemic shooter “The Division“. The main actors have also been known for a long time: Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Chastain. But now there is bad news about the project, which was initially planned as a feature film but then shifted to Netflix.
What do we know about the project?
- A film about “The Division” was announced after the successful release of The Division 1 in 2016. At that time, a feature film was planned with the main actors Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) and Jake Gyllenhaal (End of Watch). Ubisoft announced this via a blog post back then.
- In 2019, new information emerged for the first time: The film now has an actor, a director, a writer, and a home: The film will exclusively appear on the streaming platform Netflix.
- Since then, there has been a long silence. Now there is news, and it is sobering.
With Corona, the film “suddenly became no fun”
What is the status of the “The Division” film in 2022? In an interview about the current film Violent Night, a kind of “Die Hard, but with Santa Claus,” producer Kevin McCormick (via discussingfilm):
To be honest, when COVID came, we left The Division because it felt like a documentary. In the sense that the story is about an outbreak happening in real-time, what dangers arise and what anxieties it triggers. It was like: “Whoa, this is no fun anymore”.
So we had to deal with it literally in our own lives. I think we could get excited about it again, it’s such a cool thing and what one could do with the imagination of a team is actually fantastic. But in the end, we decided to give it up because of Covid.
The film project for The Division is likely on hold for now
When asked if another production company has taken over the project, McCormick said:
I’ve heard that it’s now simmering on the back burner for a while, but I’m not sure about that.
It sounds like the project is currently either dead or nearly dead – after 2 years of pandemic, an “exciting action film with The Division” is probably no longer as attractive as it was before:
