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I keep a pretty close eye on all the games Hollywood is turning into movies, and I'm well aware that just because a development deal is struck doesn't mean a film will ever get made. Take the Just Cause movie, which was announced way back in 2011 and still hasn't materialized, or the Beyond Good and Evil film announced in 2020 that is just as MIA as Beyond Good and Evil 2.
So when a Call of Duty film adaptation was announced last month, I figured there was a chance we might not hear about it for a while—or maybe not ever again.
Wrong. Activision and Paramount just announced that Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of your dad's favorite TV show and its roughly 36 different spinoffs, Yellowstone, is writing the script for the Call of Duty movie. Co-writing and directing is Peter Berg, developer of Friday Night Lights.
Sheridan is a huge get—NBCUniversal reportedly spent in the neighborhood of $1 billion to woo him away from Paramount starting in 2029—and as a result Call of Duty is suddenly looking like a huge movie.
No stars have been announced yet, but I'd bet money Mark Wahlberg is blowing up Sheridan's phone right about now. At least we can assume Frank Grillo and Jon Bernthal will be there in supporting roles because they have to be. Those two are like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Black Ops had a couple of big, muscular babies together. Those guys know how to load guns and say things like "eyes on."
Regardless of casting, I have a smidge of hope the Call of Duty script might not be pure dreck: Sheridan also wrote solid bank robbery flick Hell or High Water and excellent action thrillers Wind River (which he also directed) and Sicario. On the other hand, Berg already has a game adaptation under his belt—and it's Battleship. Let's hope this videogame makes a better movie than that board game did.
