Topline
Paramount struck a deal with video game publisher Activision to adapt “Call of Duty,” one of the world’s best-selling video game franchises, for the big screen, a major bet for the film studio as video games are notoriously tough to adapt, but have in recent years become massive box office hits.
Paramount and the Microsoft-owned gaming studio Activision are working on a blockbuster film adaptation of “Call of Duty,” multiple outlets reported Tuesday, and sources told Variety the agreement could extend to additional film or television adaptations.
The value of the deal was not released, multiple outlets reported.
David Ellison, the new CEO of Paramount following its merger with Skydance, called the deal a “dream come true” in a statement, adding he is a lifelong “Call of Duty” fan and has spent “countless hours playing this franchise.”
Ellison, prior to taking over Paramount, was a film producer behind hits like the “Mission Impossible” franchise and “Top Gun: Maverick,” for which he earned an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.
The agreement is one of Paramount’s biggest bets since its Skydance merger, including its recent $7.7 billion deal to secure streaming rights to the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
“Call of Duty” has sold more than 500 million copies across dozens of games released since 2003, the Washington Post reported last year. That figure puts it on par with Tetris, Pokémon and Mario Bros. as one of the best-selling video game franchises ever. As of 2022, the game franchise had grossed more than $30 billion in revenue, the Washington Post reported. Microsoft acquired Activision in 2023 in a deal worth $69 billion.
They can be. Film studios have long struggled to make adaptations of video games that please critics and audiences, and some critics have suggested video games are tough to adapt because the sheer volume of gaming content has to be condensed to fit the length of a movie. Cara Ellison, a video game narrative designer, told The Guardian “big-brand franchise games, the ones film studios think they can make brand recognition money from, are at least 15 hours long,” which is hard to condense into a decent script. Jack Wentworth-Weedon, a coordinator at the United Kingdom’s National Science and Media Museum, wrote in a column video game adaptations may not click with viewers because they remove the element of interactivity from the game. But in recent years, Hollywood studios have found huge success with video game adaptations. This year’s third-highest-grossing movie is “A Minecraft Movie,” which vastly outpaced box office projections to gross a huge $162 million in its opening weekend. It has since grossed almost $1 billion worldwide. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” was 2023’s second-biggest film, grossing $1.3 billion. But both of these movies earned mixed reviews, while many other recent video game adaptations—like “Five Nights at Freddy’s” and “Borderlands”—were critically panned. “Borderlands” bombed at the box office, grossing just $33 million on a more than $100 million budget, while a 2016 “Assassin’s Creed” film adaptation underperformed, reportedly ending the chance of a sequel.
‘Call of Duty’ Movie in the Works Under Major Paramount Skydance, Microsoft’s Activision Pact (Forbes)