Video game adaptations into live-action content has been around for decades. It's not always been good, but recently, in particular, we've had some bangers. The Last of Us was brilliant, and Fallout Season 1 even more so. I'll leave the jury out on Halo, mostly because I haven't seen it.
In the case of the two I did mention that I have seen, there was also a knock on effect for the video games upon which they were based. Fallout has been utterly flying since the Prime Video series debuted less than three weeks ago as I write this.
So it got me thinking about my own favorite franchise, Ubisoft's The Division. Aside from the Agent Origins live-action episodes which were later combined into one and put on streaming services (I watched it back in the day on Prime Video, no less), there hasn't been anything yet. But there should be. At least, we were told there would be.
So, now I'm done watching (and re-watching) Fallout, I'm asking the question. Where the heck is The Division's movie that we were promised?
Wait, The Division is getting a movie?
Yes, there is supposed to be a movie based on The Division happening! And as it turns out, it was revealed longer ago than I'd originally thought.
Back in June 2019, Netflix and Ubisoft first announced an adaptation of the game for the big(ger) screen.
[Access Granted. Commencing Transmission]Director @DavidMLeitch, @Jes_Chastain, and Jake Gyllenhaal are bringing Ubisoft’s The Division to Netflix. It’s the Tom Clancy high-stakes action you love, in the pandemic stricken Manhattan that offers no second chances. pic.twitter.com/cpi6JCp4EMJune 10, 2019
The last update of any kind came on February 25, 2021, when Ubisoft updated its own announcement with news that Rawson Marshall Thurber would now be directing, and that Ellen Shanman was adapting the script. It was mentioned again in March of the same year as one part of an expanded The Division universe.
Details were scarce at reveal time, too. We know that Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Chastain had both been cast in it, and we know that (at the time at least) it's slated to take place in the setting of the original game, New York City.
"Starring Jessica Chastain and Jake Gyllenhaal, The Division is set in the near future, where a virus is spread via paper money on Black Friday, decimating the city of New York. By Christmas, what’s left of society has descended into chaos. A group of civilians, trained to operate in catastrophic times, are activated to save who and what remains."
The initial production was unavoidably disrupted by the real-life pandemic, but the last word of any kind seems to be that it was supposed to be getting going in November 2021. Two and a half years on from that point we're no closer to knowing if indeed production started, whether it's finished, whether it went back to the drawing board or, well, anything.
We know nothing.
The Division is a perfect match for a live-action release, and Netflix is the right partner
What I'm hoping for is a kick-ass movie and a similarly kick-ass spike in the player base of The Division's games. I'm biased, because I love The Division 2 (and its predecessor, naturally). But while it enjoys a large player base already, there are many more who haven't ever played, and I think they'd enjoy what they find.
In this case, unlike Fallout, it looks like the movie would tread the ground of the first game. Closer to what happened with The Last of Us, and how it kinda sorta follows the first game. So it wouldn't expand the overall universe in the same way Fallout has, but, if done right, it would certainly bring new players to the games.
But more so than that, the setting of The Division franchise is perfect for a live-action adaptation. What do we seem to love watching more than post-apocalyptic tales of survival? The actual pandemic may well have led the team behind the movie to hold off, given the potential sensitivity of the public reaction, which I get, but I do hope it's still in the works.
Netflix is the perfect partner for such a project, too. Quality of shows aside, the reach that Fallout has compared to Halo, for example, by being on Prime Video rather than Paramount+ will surely have helped its exposure. Like Microsoft putting first-party games on Steam, you go where the eyeballs are. And the eyeballs are on services such as Netflix.
A theatrical release of a movie based on a game like this would almost certainly, I feel, be classed as a failure. With Netflix, there's a guaranteed audience.
Please don't be quietly cancelled
Waiting on something you're invested in is always hard. Right now, I'm just trying to make it to August until the final season of The Umbrella Academy finally lands. Then it'll be onto waiting for Stranger Things, and of course, I'm already antsy for Fallout Season 2.
But it's made harder when actual years pass by without any apparent word that the project is still progressing, or that it even still exists. My cynical side thinks it may have been quietly cancelled, and they're hoping we don't notice. But we do notice.
So, take this as something of a plea, Ubisoft. Tell us something. Anything. Just let us know what's going on.
