Stephen Gaghan set to write and direct film of The Division

Ubisoft’s upcoming film of The Division has finally found itself a writer and director. Taking on both roles is Stephen Gaghan, who wrote the Academy Award-winning script for Traffic. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for his work on Syriana, which he both wrote and directed.

The film is currently set to star Jake Gyllenhaal (who also starred in the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time reboot) and Jessica Chastain.

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, they’re great guys, exceptionally creative, and willing to take risks,” Gaghan said in a statement.

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.”

Chief executive officer of Ubisoft Motion Pictures Gerard Guillemot commented: We are really excited to bring Stephen’s unique vision of the game to film audiences around the globe."

Vice president and head of development for Ubisoft Motion Pictures Matt Phelps added: We can’t wait for Stephen’s remarkable passion and talent to bring the astonishing world of The Division to life."

Ubisoft Motion Pictures’ first feature film was Assassin’s Creed, which opened in UK cinemas on January 1st 2017. So far, it’s taken $186m at the US box office, making it the eight-highest grossing video game to movie adaptation to date. It still has some way to go before it catches up to video game films such as Warcraft, which sits at No.1 with a gross revenue of $434m, and Resident Evil: Retribution, which charts in sixth place with $240m, but it’s been more successful than Pokemon: The First Movie, which grossed $164m and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life, which grossed $156m.

However, despite Assassin’s Creed’s relative success at the box office, the film was universally panned by critics, earning a Metacritic score of 36 per cent, and a Rotten Tomatoes rating of just 17 per cent. Hopefully The Division film will do a little better.