A Call of Duty Movie is "No Longer a Priority" for Activision

In November 2015, Activision Blizzard announced that they would be opening a new studio, aptly named Activision Blizzard Studios, whose primary focus would be creating films and TV shows based on their intellectual properties.

Shortly after the studio's announcement, Activision Blizzard Studios announced that it was considering a feature film based on the Call of Duty franchise. The following year, the studio's first project titled Skylanders Academy was released on Netflix and produced two seasons, which came to an end in September of 2018.

On February 13th, 2018, sources told Variety that the idea of a Call of Duty movie was finally coming to fruition and that it would be directed by Stefano Sollima, Director of Sicario 2. At the time of this report, there was no distributor for the film, but a script had been written in collaboration with Activision Blizzard Studios’ Presidents Stacey Sher and Nick van Dyk and Activision Blizzard Chief Executive Bobby Kotick.

Little details were given on this project over the years. But in an interview with Guardian, Stacey Sher and Nick van Dyk discussed the idea of bringing together a universe that will "draw on the feel of the different incarnations of the series, rather than bringing over existing plots."

Exactly two years after the initial report by Variety, Director Stefano Sollima tells BadTaste that the project is "no longer a priority" of Activision's. One interesting piece of information revealed in this statement, however, is that Scott Silver - the Writer of Joker, 8 Mile, and more - wrote a script for the Call of Duty movie.

Well, the Call of Duty film has remained a bit like this... We wrote the script with Scott Silver, which is what Joker wrote, and let’s say that the idea of expanding the universe, the world of Call of Duty, is cinematographic it is no longer (at the moment) an industrial priority of the group, of Activision... So, trivially, it has stood still, something that happens quite frequently there in America.

The current status of the Call of Duty feature film is rather grim, for anybody who was looking forward to it. We can only hope that one day the efforts of Activision Blizzard Studios and those involved come to life on the big screen.