Posted in: Movies, Paramount Pictures | Tagged: call of duty

Call of Duty Live-Action Film: Peter Berg And Taylor Sheridan Sign On

Paramount and Activision will develop a live-action film based on Call of Duty, with Peter Berg set to write and direct, and Taylor Sheridan also writing and producing.

Someone finally pulled Taylor Sheridan away from television and whatever movie everyone was expecting him to jump on; it probably wasn't this one. Much in the same way that everyone was probably surprised when Zach Cregger jumped on the latest Resident Evil adaptation, Sheridan is joining Peter Berg on another video game franchise that has been waiting in the wings for a long time. According to a press release, Paramount and Activision will develop and produce, with Paramount distributing, a live-action feature film based on Call of Duty. Berg is set to write, direct, and produce with his team. Sheridan will also write and produce, with David Glasser also producing. The press release describes the project as a film "designed to thrill its massive global fan base by delivering on the hallmarks of what fans love about the iconic series, while boldly expanding the franchise to entirely new audiences." Sheridan and Berg have worked on theatrical films before, including Hell or High Water and Wind River, which are two films you need to watch if you haven't yet.

At the moment, there doesn't appear to be any other information about this new Call of Duty movie, including the time period it's going to take place in. Following the release of the fourth game, the franchise is everywhere in history, so Berg and Sheridan have a lot of potential time periods to explore.

Call of Duty Is Another Video Game Franchise Emerging From Development Hell

Much like other video game franchises that exploded in the early 2000s and 2010s, a Call of Duty movie has been in the works for a while now. It is one of the rare projects that seemed like it was very close to getting off the ground, but circumstance was the thing that kneecapped this production. In late November 2007, Activision released Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and the franchise hasn't been the same since. It's the kind of hit that studios dream of, and while the exact number is a bit murky, with some sources saying it has sold $15 million copies six years after its initial release. It changed multiplayer gaming as we know it and was revolutionary in that it managed to break the franchise out of World War II. The franchise as a whole has sold over $500 million copies.

So a Call of Duty movie is something that has been hanging out in varying levels of development since at least 2015, but one can assume Activision started thinking about it long before. While the story of these days is something people have praised for some [but not all] of the many installments, it was the interactive aspects of this game that made it such a cultural zeitgeist. The film got some momentum in early 2018, but by the time everything seemed to be coming together, it didn't film in 2019 as initially planned, and we all know what happened in 2020. Video game adaptations are having their moment, for what feels like the first time, from the animated Mario movies to The Last of Us on HBO. Call of Duty, joining the ranks of Uncharted, BioShock, and many others, is finally making its way to the big screen, an ongoing pattern that doesn't appear to be going away anytime soon.

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