Call of Duty movie is in development at Paramount

Activision has announced that it is partnering with Paramount to make a movie based on its famous Call of Duty video game series. As reported by Variety, in addition to a movie, the deal may also include spin-off films and TV series in a Call of Duty cinematic universe. The most recent game in the series was last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, developed by Treyarch and Raven Software.

The Call of Duty video game franchise began in 2003 as a military FPS set in WWII. Fittingly, the early games themselves were heavily inspired by war films like Saving Private Ryan. The series has since moved to the present day in the Modern Warfare series, as well as gone straight into sci-fi territory in Infinite Warfare. As such, there are multiple directions that a Call of Duty film could take in terms of tone, time period and setting. At this stage, it’s unclear which entry of the franchise will serve as the main inspiration.

“Throughout its history, ‘Call of Duty’ has captured our imagination with incredible action and intense stories that have brought millions of people together from around the world, and that focus on making incredible ‘Call of Duty’ games remains unwavering,” Activision president Rob Kostich said in a statement. “With Paramount, we have found a fantastic partner who we will work with to take that visceral, breathtaking action to the big screen in a defining cinematic moment. The film will honor and expand upon what has made this franchise great in the first place, and we cannot wait to get started.”

It is clear based on this statement that the project is evidently in the early days. Modern video game adaptations have mostly gone from strength to strength and have generally attained both critical and commercial success (last year’s Borderlands movie notwithstanding). As such, now is as good a time as any to bring Call of Duty, a commercial juggernaut of the video game industry, to the big screen. We will have to await more info from Paramount and Activision as the film’s development progresses.