Call of Duty Is Becoming a Live-Action Movie

Call of Duty, one of the most successful video game franchises of all time, is becoming a feature film with Peter Berg and Taylor Sheridan spearheading the adaptation, Paramount Pictures and Activision said Thursday. Berg and Sheridan will co-write the script and produce together, with Berg directing, the AP reports. The longtime friends previously collaborated on Hell or High Water, which received four Oscar nominations, and Wind River.

• The film will be live action, but no other details about the Call of Duty movie were immediately available. The first-person shooter game, which debuted in 2003 as a World War II simulation, has sold over 500 million copies globally. Subsequent versions have delved into modern warfare as well.

• Berg and Sheridan "seem to be perfect fits to bring the project to life given their previous works, specifically when it comes to the military," Justin Kroll writes at Deadline.
• The news of Sheridan's involvement in a new Paramount project came as a bit of a surprise to the industry. Earlier this week, reports said that the Yellowstone creator was leaving Paramount for an overall film and television deal at NBCUniversal valued at some $1 billion across five years. Representatives for NBCUniversal declined to comment.
• The announcement also comes on the heels of mass layoffs at Paramount, just months after completing its $8 billion merger with Skydance. Paramount initiated roughly 1,000 of a planned 2,000 layoffs company-wide on Wednesday.