When it comes to video games and movies, most of us have found out the hard way not to get too excited and to keep them separate. That doesn’t keep Hollywood from knocking on the gaming industry’s door whenever they can, even if history tells us that it usually ends in hilarious failure. Who doesn’t fondly remember the Super Mario Brothers film? What about such head scratchers as Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter or even the Dwayne Johnson-starring Doom? Needless to say, Hollywood and the game industry are still doing their best to make the marriage of two blockbuster entertainment industries work out, even if there have been mixed results in the past.
So while Ubisoft is working on getting an Assassin’s Creed film out into the world, they are also working on one for a more recent game in The Division. The Division is a dystopian future where an infection hit and humanity has been struggling to survive, and, according to Variety, Jake Gyllenhaal looks to be the star of it. For Gyllenhaal, this isn’t his first dance with video game films, starring in the mostly critically-panned Prince of Persia: Sands of Time in 2010 (interestingly enough, another Ubisoft property).
The Division has been a financial hit for Ubisoft and while they don’t quite have a script for the film version yet, Gyllenhaal is attached as both the leader actor and a producer, meaning that there’s a good chance that the entire movie is going to be built around the fact that it stars Jake Gyllenhaal, which is good for the Jake Gyllenhaal business.
(Via Variety)
