‘Call of Duty’ movie is in the works

AP:

Call of Duty, one of the biggest 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 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 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.

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 US$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 US$8 billion merger with Skydance. Paramount initiated roughly 1,000 of a planned 2,000 layoffs company-wide on Wednesday.