American actor Jeff Daniels, popular for his role as highly acclaimed news anchor Will McAvoy in Aaron Sorkin's HBO television series The Newsroom has just joined the Allegiant movie, which is the third installment of Veronica Roth's Divergent series.
Allegiant will be split into two parts, with Insurgent director Robert Schwentke all set to shoot the first part soon, and Daniels has nabbed a major role in the film starring Shailene Woodley as Tris Prior and her boyfriend Four played by Theo James, according to Empire.
In the third film, Tris and Four together with the rest of their friends try to discover the secret about the factions' past. Daniels will be playing David, the leader of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, which originally created the various factions - Erudite, Amity, Abnegation, Candor, and Dauntless.
Despite their seemingly good intentions, Tris and the rest will soon discover that David and his team might not be their allies, and have an ulterior motive for creating the factions.
Noah Oppenheim will be writing the screenplay, and Schwentke will start his cameras rolling on May. It will be Schwentke's last project for the series, since Lionsgate might be choosing a different director to man the second half of Allegiant.
The first part of Allegiant is set for release on March 18, while there has been no release date yet for the second part of the film.
Aside from working on Allegiant, Daniels is busy working on Danny Boyle's movie Steve Jobs and Ridley Scott's The Martian, which have been slated for release on November 13 and November 27, respectively.
Daniels started working in show business in 1981 with the film Ragtime, and even ventured into Broadway. He was nominated a Tony Award as Best Actor for his performance in God of Carnage (2009). As for film, he has received four Golden Globe Award nominations, including Best Performance by Actor in a Motion Picture- Comedy/Musical for Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985).
He has also been hailed by the Screen Actors Guild, Satellite Awards, and several other awards companies for his work in The Squid and the Whale, and Terms of Endearment (1983), where he played Debra Winger's husband.
For his role as Will McAvoy in The Newsroom, Daniels won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 2013.
Despite his serious roles, Daniels takes part in light hearted films too, and his most recent involvement was in Jim Carey's movie Dumb and Dumber To.
