Deadpool 2’s David Leitch Is Going To Direct The Division Starring Jake Gyllenhaal And Jessica Chastain

David Leitch, director of Deadpool 2 and Atomic Blonde, is set to helm The Division movie which will star Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Chastain.

David Leitch is a man with a lot on his plate at the moment. Not only is he currently hard at work ensuring that Deadpool 2 is perfect before its release (which if the trailers are anything to go by, it is), but he’s also already got a lot of future projects lined up. It’s previously been announced that his next project will be the Fast & Furious spinoff movie, Hobbs And Shaw, starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham. There’s also a sequel to Atomic Blonde in the works that Leitch might direct. Now, we’ve learnt that he’ll be following that up with the movie adaptation of Ubisoft’s video game, Tom Clancy’s The Division.

According to Variety, Gold director Stephen Gaghan was originally attached to direct the project, but he has since left, and David Leitch has taken over. The movie will star Jake Gyllenhaal – who’s tipped to be the next Batman but is keeping mum on that front for now – and Jessica Chastain, who has recently joined It: Chapter 2. These are all very busy people; however, they all seem like a perfect fit for this project, which could very well end up being the video game movie adaptation we’ve all be waiting for.

Chad Stahelski and David Leitch directing John Wick

Tom Clancy’s The Division came to consoles in 2016 and quickly became Ubisoft’s best-selling game of all time. It managed to make over $330 million worldwide in its first week of release which is crazy money. The game is set in a near future New York where a smallpox pandemic has killed a lot of the world’s population, and you play as an agent of the Strategic Homeland Division who is trying to investigate how this outbreak occurred while fending off all the criminals who have taken over Manhattan. The story certainly lends itself very well to the cinema. Here’s hoping that Leitch and co. do the game justice and end up breaking that video game movie curse once and for all.

Incidentally, 2018 has been a noteworthy year for video game movies. We’ve already had two films which were based on video game properties – Tomb Raider and Rampage – and they weren’t terrible. They weren’t great either, and neither of them were quite good enough to break that pesky video game movie curse, but it looks like we’re headed in the right direction.

There’s no news yet of when The Division will hit cinemas, however, due to Leitch’s busy schedule, it’s looking like a 2020 movie.