By We guess we should be eating our words now, because a Call of Duty movie is probably happening. Activision Blizzard Studios, a real film and television studio as of 2015, is bullish on bringing their mega-franchise to the big screen, with Variety reporting that Sicario 2: Soldado director Stefano Sollima is attached to direct.
Sollima succeeded original Sicario director Denis Villeneuve, who departed to direct Blade Runner 2049.
The film will be produced by studio presidents Stacey Sher and Nick van Dyk, along with Activision Blizzard CEO and Moneyball superstar Bobby Kotick. Snowden scribe Kieran Fitzgerald is on screenwriting duties, but the film, which is said to be the start of a “Call of Duty cinematic universe” (undoubtedly a terrifying phrase), has yet to gain a distributor.
Now one must wonder what the hell these movies would be about. These films are said to not adapt specific stories from the series, but rather draw from the “feel” of the video games. But seeing how these video games are ripped straight from Band of Brothers, Michael Bay movies and 1980s action flicks, the exercise of adapting Call of Duty to film eventually becomes an infinite feedback loop.
We’ll see how Sollima fares when Sicario 2: Soldado releases in theaters on June 29. Meanwhile, the closest things we have to a live-action Call of Duty movie are various live-action trailers, so we can imagine that a full-length movie would basically be like those, but on repeat.
‘Sicario 2’ Director Tapped to Helm ‘Call of Duty’ Film [Variety]