The Call of Duty (CoD) video game franchise is one of the oldest and most prolific in video game history. Since the first ever CoD title in 2003, the franchise has collaborated with various entities and industries, from musicians to professional athletes. Most recently, the franchise’s Modern Warfare 3 installment announced a collab featuring notable WWE superstars Rhea Ripley, Cody Rhodes, and wrestling legend Rey Mysterio. The collaboration features each superstar receiving their own “operator” skins that can be used in Modern Warfare 3 and CoD’s battle royale mode, Warzone.
However, one of the most awaited Call of Duty collaborations fans have longed for is the franchise’s Hollywood debut. Nowadays, lots of film and television franchises are direct or loose video game adaptations. The recently released Fallout series garnered critical acclaim for being a faithful adaptation of the video game franchise from Bethesda Softworks, and the recently canceled Halo was based on the franchise of the same name from developer 343 Industries. Meanwhile, The Super Mario Bros. Movie broke multiple box office records upon release in 2023, becoming the first film based on a video game to gross over one billion dollars.
In this golden age of video game adaptations, both for the big screen and television, fans of the CoD franchise may wonder why the games haven’t caught the attention of movie producers and execs. After all, recent single player campaigns of the games could be argued as cinematic in their own right, playing like an interactive hours-long movie within the Call of Duty lore. Below, we’ll take a closer look at the Call of Duty franchise and some close attempts to a Call of Duty movie — or movies — in the past:
Call of Duty
Aside from the gap between the first (2003) and second (2005) Call of Duty games, Activision-Blizzard has worked to consistently release a new CoD game every year. As a result, the game has garnered a loyal following of players and professional esports athletes looking to see what each new installment brings. Today, Call of Duty remains an esports staple, with major global tournaments occurring throughout the year.
The eSport has become so popular that avid CoD fans have integrated Call of Duty betting into their community as a form of added entertainment. Aside from the officially Activision-organized Call of Duty League (CDL) tournaments taking place every year, fans and players also have various off-season tournaments like the Pro-Am Classic that boast significant prize pools. On top of watching top teams like Toronto Ultra, OpTic Texas, and FaZe Atlanta beat each other out for the world champion title, fans can bet on various odds to add to the game’s stakes, predicting match and map outcomes as well as specific scores as one would with traditional sports.
In a previous review of sports film Bruised , starring and directed by Halle Berry, we highlighted the film’s narrative about MMA fighter Jackie Justice and its adherence to the sports film formula a la Rocky. While it doesn’t particularly innovate within the genre, Bruised joins a long list of sports movies produced and released throughout Hollywood history. This begs the question: since sports movies have become a staple in film, why can’t esports movies do the same? In the case of Call of Duty, it seems, developers and Hollywood did try.
A Call of Duty cinematic universe
Unbeknownst to many, the Call of Duty franchise almost had its own Marvel-esque cinematic universe. Back in 2017, prior to the release of a new installment in WWII, Activision heads spoke about the company’s attempt to grow the Call of Duty brand and start its own cinematic universe. At the time, multiple scripts were being worked on, with executives stating they were plotting CoD lore by the years.
Stacey Sher and Nick van Dyk, two co-presidents of Activision Blizzard Studios, even discussed the potential of each Call of Duty installment having its own “feel”, like the Black Ops games being turned into stories about private, covert operations, while the Modern Warfare series would tell narratives of public warfare and operations. However, it has been years since these musings from Activision. Per the latest update, Activision has not expressed further interest in developing this cinematic universe.
A scrapped Call of Duty movie
Finally, while the potential cinematic universe has lacked official updates in the past years, the closest fans and movie enthusiasts got to a proper Call of Duty movie was the rumor that the director of the Sicario sequel Day of the Soldado, was potentially involved. Director Stefano Sollima spoke about “radical ideas” in 2015 concerning the making of the CoD film and the source material for the game, including a “flexible approach” and wanting to take “as many creative liberties” as possible to separate the film from the games. Officially, the film was halted in 2020 due to “internal reasons.”
Another fun fact about the scrapped CoD movie is ex-Superman Henry Cavill’s rumored involvement. Most notably, Caville was rumored to portray the mustached Captain Price — an integral character appearing throughout the Call of Duty games — too much fan excitement.
So, while fans will have to hold out for anymore news or confirmation of a Call of Duty movie ever coming into fruition, it’s certainly nice to know that executives were and are interested. As we continue to be gifted with more video game adaptations on the big screen and television, it’ll be interesting to see a proper CoD film for long-time fans of the shooter genre.
