With the curse of video game adaptations long since put to bed by the likes of Tomb Raider, HBO's The Last Of Us, Prime Video's Fallout, and — at le
With the curse of video game adaptations long since put to bed by the likes of Tomb Raider, HBO’s The Last Of Us, Prime Video’s Fallout, and — at least in box office terms — A Minecraft Movie and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, it seems the time is finally nigh for Call Of Duty to shoot its cinematic shot. Yes, per Variety‘s reporting, Paramount has just signed a major deal with Microsoft-owned game devs Activision to make a live-action movie based on the iconic first-person shooter franchise.
As Variety shares, while Paramount’s deal is specifically to develop, produce, and distribute a single COD feature, the potential is very much there for a movie to spawn a shared universe encompassing both the substantial and tiny screen if successful. And despite previous failed attempts to get a Call Of Duty movie off the ground elsewhere (Sicario 2 director Stefano Sollima had, at one time, been recruited to direct a movie with Tom Hardy and Chris Pine eyed to lead), there’s no shortage of reasons to believe a live-action movie based on the series could work.
Not only have the games always striven for a degree of cinematic pedigree in their own right as the franchise has tackled conflicts from the First World War to the Cold War to the War on Terror and beyond, but they’ve actually featured many of Hollywood’s finest over the years already. Who can forget Gary Oldman’s Viktor Reznov in World At War? Or Idris Elba’s Sgt. Truck in Modern Warfare 3? Or how about John Malkovich, Helena Bonham Carter, Bill Paxton, Jon Bernthal, Katee Sackhoff, and Malcom McDowell, just a few of the stars who’ve lent their likenesses to the games’ Zombie off-shoots over the years. If the games alone can attract that kind of star power, it bodes well for any big-screen project’s prospects.
Now, at this stage, with no directors or creatives attached and no hint as to potential plots (there are over 30 games to draw inspiration from, however), there’s no knowing what exactly Paramount’s first post-Halo foray into FPS adaptation might have in store for us. But if the studio can find a way to honour the games’ immersive approach to warfare while building on their cinematic aspirations, it could well be on to a winner. Here’s just hoping there’ll be no instinctive Beavis & Butthead, Nicki Minaj, or Neymar Jr. cameos, eh?
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