Call of Duty movie 10 years in the making gets major update
There seems to be no stopping the boom in live-action video game adaptations, and while we were once confined to the likes of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson leading Doom and the decreasing quality of the Milla Jovovich Resident Evil movies, the tide is turning.
Away from animated outings like The Super Mario Bros. Movie breaking records, TV shows, including The Last of Us and Fallout, have brought some of our favorite IPs to life.
Video game adaptations still aren't a surefire win, and as the hated Borderlands movie proves, not everyone gets it right. Still, with A Minecraft Movie making a fortune at the box office, we also have a packed slate of adaptations that includes everything from Amazon's God of War series to Netflix's BioShock movie, Zach Cregger's Resident Evil reboot to Wes Ball's The Legend of Zelda movie.
Away from the long-awaited Gears of War movie moving forward, Activision Blizzard King is keen to get in on the action. As one of the biggest gaming franchises out there, Call of Duty looks like it's finally coming to the silver screen.
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Deadline reports that Paramount has just signed a major deal with Activision to bring a Call of Duty movie to life.
Paramount had mixed success with its short-lived Halo TV series, so let's hope the CoDverse fares better.
Paramount is now under the umbrella of Skydance, with Call of Duty being an IP close to the heart of Chairman & CEO David Ellison.
As the outlet reminds us, Call of Duty has been the best-selling video game series in the USA for 16 consecutive years, boasting over half a billion copies sold around the world.
Cheering the passion project, Ellison said in a statement: "As a lifelong fan of Call of Duty this is truly a dream come true. From the first Allied campaigns in the original Call of Duty, through Modern Warfare and Black Ops, I’ve spent countless hours playing this franchise that I absolutely love."
Saying it's an honor to be entrusted by Activision and CoD players, Ellison promises the project will have "the same disciplined, uncompromising commitment to excellence that guided our work on Top Gun: Maverick, ensuring it meets the exceptionally high standards this franchise and its fans deserve."
Reiterating that this will be a movie that honors the source material, Ellison concluded: "I can promise that we are resolute in our mission to deliver a cinematic experience that honors the legacy of this one-in-a-million brand – thrilling longtime fans of Call of Duty while captivating a whole new generation.”
This isn't the first time we've heard about a Call of Duty movie, and way back in 2015, it was reported that Activision Blizzard had launched a production studio called Activision Blizzard Studios. The plan was supposedly to launch a live-action Call of Duty cinematic universe in 2019, with Sicario: Day of the Soldado's Stefano Sollima eventually signing on to direct a movie that he said could've starred Tom Hardy and Chris Pine.
Black Panther co-writer Joe Robert Cole was supposed to pen the outing, with Sollima stating it would be a 'proper' soldier movie instead of a war epic. Things fell into development hell when Sollima admitted it wasn't a priority for Activision, but with Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 looking like one of the franchise's most bombastic outings yet, it's clear the CoDverse has no plans to go out quietly.