This week, it was announced that Call of Duty was going to be turned into a movie over at Paramount, recently flying high with the release of blockbusters like Top Gun Maverick. But it appears something rather wild happened behind the scenes in terms of how they landed the project.
According to a new report from the reliable Puck News, none other than Steven Spielberg was trying to land the Call of Duty movie as allegedly a huge player of the game himself.
Spielberg pitched what he wanted for the movie to Activision, but he also wanted full final cut and control over production of the film. That “spooked” Activision who bailed and then sold to Paramount where they would have more control.
This is Steven Spielberg we’re talking about, one of the most famous and talented directors of all time, but Activision just couldn’t give up control, even if he’s a big fan of the series at baseline. It’s kind of a crazy though, given his pedigree, but I also cannot find myself terribly shocked that Activision would not want a large amount of control over this long-awaited multimedia adaptation of their flagship franchise and one of the biggest video game properties in the world. So I…sort of see where they’re coming from?
Looking through Spielberg’s past few films we have projects like The Fabelmans, West Side Story and the video game-centric Ready Player One. But this is a director who was behind spy classics like Bridge of Spies and Munich and arguably the most famous military movie of all time, Saving Private Ryan, albeit that was 27 years ago now.
I suppose Activision has seen recent Paramount projects like Top Gun Maverick and the recent Mission Impossibles and figured that was a good fit for the action-oriented Call of Duty brand, whereas action blockbuster is generally not Spielberg’s thing these days. I think the last time you could classify one of his projects as a true blockbuster would be Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, which was in 2008 (and not exactly beloved).
It is, of course, smart to be extremely skeptical of any video game adaptation, much less Call of Duty. The immediate thought among most fans is that the better, Captain Price-led Modern Warfare tales would be ripe for adaptation, albeit Activision seems positively in love with Black Ops these days. Though it could be an entirely original story (I would argue that would be ill-advised).
So, no Spielberg Call of Duty, but I can’t say I’m all that shocked in the context of Activision’s desires and the larger blockbuster market at present. We’ll see how it goes in a few years, unless it gets stuck in development hell.
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