Before creating the sprawling Yellowstone franchise and dad-drama series Landman for Paramount, writer Taylor Sheridan cut his teeth on cinematic action thrillers like Sicario, Hell or High Water, and Without Remorse, the latter of which is based on Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six precursor. Sheridan's next big project is an adaptation of Activision's Call of Duty franchise, and he's teaming up with a director who's perfect to tackle the project: Peter Berg, the director behind modern military movies The Kingdom and Lone Survivor. According to Berg, Sheridan is bringing something to 2028's Call of Duty movie that few other writers could.
Berg is currently promoting his latest war film, The Mosquito Bowl, a World War II movie based on the book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Buzz Bissinger. Speaking to ComicBook.com, Berg explained the approach he and Sheridan are taking in making a Call of Duty movie, and why they're working to deliver more than just shoot-'em-up action. "Modern Warfare, if you really look at the missions, and the storylines, and the characters – like Captain Price, Soap, Ghost, and Alex – these are complicated humans," Berg said.
These are very nuanced storylines; there’s a real soul to the Modern Warfare universe. Yes, there’s violence, and there’s hardware, and equipment, and there’s killing – but underneath it I think the game, and the [creators] of the game, are really looking at the cost of war, the cost of having to be a warrior who’s, for whatever reason, chosen to put himself between real danger and the rest of us, and the burden that these guys carry." Berg emphasized that he and Sheridan are focused on the "soul" of Call of Duty's story of soldiers. "There’s a soul underneath it, that I understand, that Taylor Sheridan understands," the director said.
"There will be a very strong soul, and [the] consequence of war within the film..." Activision and Paramount announced plans for a big-budget Call of Duty movie in 2025, promising to deliver "what fans love about the iconic series, while boldly expanding the franchise to entirely new audiences." "The film will honor and expand upon what has made this franchise great in the first place," Rob Kostich, president of Activision, said at the time. "Our shared goal is quite simple — to create an unforgettable blockbuster movie experience that our community loves, and one that also excites and inspires new fans of the franchise." Activision has flirted with bringing Call of Duty to the big screen for more than a decade. In 2015, the publisher formed Activision Blizzard Studios with the intent of adapting Activision Blizzard's stable of properties into film and TV projects.
One of the first projects announced was developing a "robust cinematic universe" based on the Call of Duty franchise. At one point, Sicario: Day of the Soldado director Stefano Sollima (who directed that movie from Sheridan's script) was lined up to direct, but that version of the project collapsed. Call of Duty is slated to hit movie theaters on June 30, 2028.
The adaptation will have some competition from another modern-military game franchise in the form of a Battlefield movie coming from director Christopher McQuarrie and star Michael B. Peter Berg's The Mosquito Bowl is coming to movie theaters on Oct. 30, and will stream on Netflix starting Nov. 25.
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