Activision Plans on Making a Call of Duty Cinimatic Universe

Now that Marvel has officially made more money than God, it’s only natural that companies would try to emulate their success. Already, we’ve got a giant monster universe, a universal monster universe, a Harry Potter universe… it’s become a rather big deal. A popular template. And it’s only a matter of time before video game movies try to jump on that bandwagon.

But the first major game to create a movie universe might not be what you think… and no, I’m not talking about Tetris, god forbid. No, apparently, Activision-Blizzard currently has plans to make a multi-media cinematic universe… out of the Call of Duty franchise.

Yeah. That. Speaking with The Guardian, co-president of Activision Blizzard Studios Stacey Sher had this to say:

“We have plotted out many years. We put together this group of writers to talk about where we were going. There’ll be a film that feels more like Black Ops, the story behind the story. The Modern Warfare series looks at what it’s like to fight a war with the eyes of the world on you. And then maybe something that is more of a hybrid, where you are looking at private, covert operations, while a public operation is going on.”

Described as a “Marvel-esque” that spans both TV and movies, the plan is to turn Activison’s biggest gaming blockbuster into a silver-screen slam-dunk as well. We also know that they plan on launching a new movie (presumably the first) by next year, and that it will all be developed in-house, but any beyond that point will have to be validated with good ticket sales. They also said that more games based off some of their other properties, like Diablo or Starcraft, were also being taken under consideration.

It might seem like just another destined-to-fail project coming from overambitious studio heads, but they do have some artistic credibility. Stacy Sher herself has worked as a producer for Pulp Fiction, Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight, GATTICA, and Garden State. Still, at least in my mind, this seems like quite the stretch.

Oh, and they tactfully tried to avoid discussing the critically panned Warcraft movie. So no new insights on that.

I’ll keep you posted as it develops. Probably when the first trailer comes out.