Paramount in talks to acquire rights for Call of Duty adaptations

According to CinemaDrame News Agency, following its high-profile merger with Skydance, Paramount Studios has entered negotiations with Activision to acquire the rights for adapting the Call of Duty video game franchise. Activision had first announced in 2015 that a Call of Duty film was in development, but in 2020 Stefano Sollima stated that such projects were “no longer a priority” for the developer.

Matt Belloni reported in Puck that Paramount is now negotiating to secure the rights to produce films based on the action video game series: “No talent is yet attached to the project… but it is said to be a top priority for [David] Ellison and his studio executives, Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein.”

Fans of Call of Duty are already speculating about potential directors, with some suggesting Michael Bay (Transformers) and others favoring Sam Hargrave (Extraction) as the best candidates.

However, one name most closely linked to Call of Duty is Steven Spielberg. His son, Max Spielberg, previously said in an interview with MinnMax that his father’s passion for video games influenced him to pursue a career in game development: “He’s a big PC gamer, and that became a point of connection for us. He’ll say, ‘What new shooters do we have?’ ‘Which Call of Duty should I play?’ He’ll ask me to send him a list of the top five shooters so he can download them, and when I visit, we play together.”