Over the past few years, it seems as though many video game movies have teetered on the sillier side, but the director of the upcoming Call of Duty adaptation promises that his adaptation will verge on the serious side, exploring the harsh reality of war, just like the games.
"If you really look at the missions and the storylines and the characters like Captain Price, Soap, Ghost, and Alex, these are complicated humans. These are not – and no disrespect – cartoon characters or comic books," said writer-director Peter Berg to ComicBook. "These are very nuanced storylines; there’s a real soul to the Modern Warfare universe."
"Yes, there’s violence, and hardware, and equipment, and killing," added Berg, "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."
Although no plot details have been revealed, the upcoming Call of Duty movie is said to bring the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare universe to life. The first Modern Warfare game was released in 2007, focusing on characters Sergeant Paul Jackson of the US Marines 1st Force Recon and Sergeant 'Soap' MacTavish of the British 22nd SAS Regiment, as both sides go into battle after a civil war breaks out in Russia, which leads to the breakdown of a Middle Eastern regime. These events raise the risk of a nuclear weapons launch against the West, so the US and UK join forces.
As you can probably tell, the game's plot harbors very serious themes, some of which are pertinent to the current state of the world, so it is no surprise that Berg wants to treat the adaptation with care. "This is not just a 'Hey let's shoot them all up and chew popcorn.' There's a real soul underneath it that understands, that Taylor Sheridan understands." Berg says that although the movie won't be as "graphically violent" as his next war movie, The Mosquito Bowl, which is set to hit Netflix on November 25, 2026, "there will be a really strong soul and consequence of war in the film."
The Call of Duty movie is set to hit theatres in summer 2028, in line with the franchise's 25th anniversary. For more, check out our list of the best Call of Duty games, and keep up with all of the upcoming video game adaptations on the way.
