The Call of Duty movie is delayed indefinitely, says the director

(Image credit: Activision)

The Call of Duty movie is on hold and not a priority for Activision, according to the director of the film. Speaking to Italian entertainment outlet Bad Taste, director Stefano Sollima said the project has “stood still” for two years despite the script being penned by Joker’s Scott Silver and Sollima himself, who previously worked on the Sicario sequel.

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

The Call of Duty movie was first announced in 2015, but since then we’ve heard nearly nothing about it, so the news of the indefinite delay makes sense.

Sollima isn’t wrong about how often projects get frozen like this in the states, especially when it comes to video game adaptations. One infamous recent example is the Uncharted movie, which has been in development for almost a decade, and has taken so long to develop that Mark Wahlberg, who was once cast as the younger wise-cracking hero, Nathan Drake, is now set to portray his old-timer father-figure Sully. The likelihood of that project ever coming to fruition has always seemed low, though the project’s new Nathan Drake, Tom Holland, said he loves the script.

Mark Delaney is a prolific copywriter and journalist. Having contributed to publications like GamesRadar+ and Official Xbox Magazine, writing news, features, reviews, and guides, he has since turned his eye to other adventures in the industry. In 2019, Mark became OpenCritic's first in-house staff writer, and in 2021 he became the guides editor over at GameSpot.