In 1970, Edwin Starr famously sang, “War! Huh, good God y’all! What is it good for?!” His answer to that was “absolutely nothing.” In truth, war has been extremely good for the world of film and video games. The Call of Duty franchise is one of the biggest in all of gaming. The yearly flow of releases has been a big win for Activision/Blizzard over the years. Between the single-player campaigns and especially the multi-player, they’ve kept a steady player base. Only seems natural that the franchise get turned into a movie.
Reconnaissance Provides New Information
We previously reported that this was in the works. As we noted, Rob Kostich, president of Activision, stated “The film will honor and expand upon what has made this franchise great in the first place, and we cannot wait to get started. Now we know Two years from now, in 2028, Peter Berg will bring “COD” to the big screen with a script co-written by Taylor Sheridan. Sheridan is a hot name in Hollywood thanks largely to creating Yellowstone.
If anything, this is a full circle moment for war based games. For those of us at a certain age, we grew up with the Medal of Honor games. Those original titles for the PlayStation were a turning point for military shooters. They were also produced and created by Steven Spielberg. He had been a video game fan in general for years but wanted to make a World War II game while filming Saving Private Ryan. Call of Duty was made as a response to this series. In fact, the first “COD” game included team members who had worked on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. Now, with Call of Duty set for release on June 30th, 2028, it’s coming back around. The game inspired by a game, inspired by a movie, is becoming a movie.
Sir! Is This Really Necessary, Sir?!
The bigger question at play here is, “What can a Call of Duty movie bring to the table that another war film can’t?” Are they planning on adapting elements of some of the games stories? Otherwise, what makes a Call of Duty film any different than another war movie? Which, by the way, is a genre already full of incredible films. Is brand recognition enough to bring people into the theater for this? It wasn’t enough to get the Halo series anything more than two seasons.
We’ll see if this movie is fit for the field when it strikes theaters on June 30th, 2028.
