Why hasn't anyone made a Call of Duty-esque blockbuster movie?

[Zombie Badger]

Considering the immense popularity of games like the CoD series and Battlefield, why hasn't anyone in Hollywood tried to cash in? I know that Activision refuses to licence their franchise in case a bad movie tie-in damages the brand but the idea of American soldiers saving the world from whoever can't be that hard a sell. Also, given that Act of Valor (A Navy SEAL propaganda film that attempted to be the next Top Gun) made over three times its budget at the box office there's clearly money to be made here.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

What exactly do you mean by "Call of Duty-esque?" From where I'm standing, Hollywood makes TONS of military focused movies, both plausible and completely implausible and ridiculous.

Do you mean a movie that follows the Call of Duty plot or something?

 

[Zombie Badger]

What exactly do you mean by "Call of Duty-esque?" From where I'm standing, Hollywood makes TONS of military focused movies, both plausible and completely implausible and ridiculous.

Do you mean a movie that follows the Call of Duty plot or something?

I mean ones with plots and settings similar to the Call of Duty series e.g A squad of soldiers fight their way across the world tracking down terrorists (a la Act of Valor) or fighting off a foreign army invading America in a way that while highly fanciful is portrayed as realistic (a la Red Dawn, which is the only example of what I'm talking about that I can think of) with the budget of a summer blockbuster. Given how much money something like Black Hawk Down made, I'm wondering why someone hasn't tried to recreate that sort of success.

 

[piinyouri]

I think (no idea as I didn't watch the whole thing) "The Kingdom" was something along the lines of a CoD game.
If not it sure as hell seemed like it, what with the big shocking scene crammed right at the beginning. (Which was just too much for me. Combination of being disturbed by it too much and feeling like the scene was shot in an almost fetishistic way.

 

[Playful Pony]

I think that Matt Damon film (Green Zone?) was pretty Call of Duty-esque, at least it felt that way to me. Grizzled army people dealing with a sinister terrorist conspiracy, and also dust and brown everywhere. If you mean a movie that follows the Call of Duty plotline, why would we want that? Those plots are incredibly silly at times, and MW3 was just downright poor... Not that I have any taste in games, but my friends and I played it together and we were all bored out of our minds by the end.

 

[Blunderboy]

Considering the immense popularity of games like the CoD series and Battlefield, why hasn't anyone in Hollywood tried to cash in? I know that Activision refuses to licence their franchise in case a bad movie tie-in damages the brand but the idea of American soldiers saving the world from whoever can't be that hard a sell. Also, given that Act of Valor (A Navy SEAL propaganda film that attempted to be the next Top Gun) made over three times its budget at the box office there's clearly money to be made here.

Next Top Gun you say?

Well we better check with Commander Loggins because that sounds like we're heading straight into the...

OT - There are plenty of films with similar themes out there. I guess I just don't see the point of reusing some of the silliest plots to make films.

 

[Terramax]

OT - There are plenty of films with similar themes out there. I guess I just don't see the point of reusing some of the silliest plots to make films.

Dude, you clearly don't work in the film industry. I know I'm teaching granny to suck eggs here, but we all know it's all about one thing--


Yeah, a CoD movie would make by the bucketload.

I suspect there'd be lots of arguments about how much % of the money goes to the film company and Activision though.

 

[wrightguy0]

a few WWII movies were pretty much like the old call of duty games, in fact Several Scenes from saving private ryan were lifted right into the medal of honor franchise (which was CoD's predecessor)

and Call of Duty 2 and the film Enemy At the Gates both involve the siege of Stalingrad as a major setting

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

Pakistan has made one called "Waar"(in English it would translate as "Strike") and it even has some Splinter Cell in the last part. Half of it is even in English.
Youtube is still banned so here is the trailer on the Pakistani version of youtube.
http://tune.pk/video/314281/WAAR-Second-LOOK-THEATRICAL-TRAILER-HD-The-Pakistani-Movie-2013

 

[Joseph Alexander]

Michael Bay anyone?

the reason no ones making a "CoD movie" is because they were all made before CoD ever came out.
the military action sub-genre was played out years ago.

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

a few WWII movies were pretty much like the old call of duty games, in fact Several Scenes from saving private ryan were lifted right into the medal of honor franchise (which was CoD's predecessor)

and Call of Duty 2 and the film Enemy At the Gates both involve the siege of Stalingrad as a major setting

Three things are linked.
Spielberg was involved in Medal Of Honor, which was made in parallel to Saving Private Ryan and part of the Medal of Honor development team was in Call Of Duty.

 

[Zombie Badger]

Act Of Valor to be the next Top Gun? It was a realistic look into what SEALS do. The sequel will focus on a S.W.A.T team. Gods forbid we make movies about American Military for entertainment value, it must all be propaganda.

Act of Valor partially originated within the Dept of Defence: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/movies/act-of-valor-film-with-active-duty-members-of-navy-seals.html?_r=0 (Paragraph 7).

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

Michael Bay anyone?

the reason no ones making a "CoD movie" is because they were all made before CoD ever came out.
the military action sub-genre was played out years ago.

Actually "Waar" pays perfect homage to that genre. Complete with a main character who looses his family at the hands of the main bad guy and retires right after and is pulled back in to kill him.

 

[Zombie Badger]

so you want a apposition of action scenes that lose an overall arc the longer the movie lasts until we have a conclusion that is kind of silly and could had been resolved in the first half of the movie by not being an idiot.

so you want some kind of Battle: Los Angeles / independence day where only americans can solve shit and we have an invading force that is slighly plausable, rather than north korea with their paper origami tanks..


suspension of disbelieve has its limits.

I'm not saying I particularly want this sort of film but I'm just surprised we don't have more of them. And enough people suspended their disbelief for Battle: LA that it made triple its budget at the box office so CoD isn't too far a stretch.

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

Considering the immense popularity of games like the CoD series and Battlefield, why hasn't anyone in Hollywood tried to cash in? I know that Activision refuses to licence their franchise in case a bad movie tie-in damages the brand but the idea of American soldiers saving the world from whoever can't be that hard a sell. Also, given that Act of Valor (A Navy SEAL propaganda film that attempted to be the next Top Gun) made over three times its budget at the box office there's clearly money to be made here.

American soldiers save the world? Price and Soap are the main characters in Modern Warfare and they are both British. In Black Ops, Reznov is really the star and in Black Ops 2 its Raul Menendez.

 

[Zombie Badger]

American soldiers save the world? Price and Soap are the main characters in Modern Warfare and they are both British. In Black Ops, Reznov is really the star and in Black Ops 2 its Raul Menendez.

While I could possibly argue the Reznov point, American protagonists are a much easier sell in Hollywood, as evidenced by their desire to crowbar American protagonists into historical situations where Americans were not present (such as U-571).

 

[MrBaskerville]

Considering the immense popularity of games like the CoD series and Battlefield, why hasn't anyone in Hollywood tried to cash in? I know that Activision refuses to licence their franchise in case a bad movie tie-in damages the brand but the idea of American soldiers saving the world from whoever can't be that hard a sell. Also, given that Act of Valor (A Navy SEAL propaganda film that attempted to be the next Top Gun) made over three times its budget at the box office there's clearly money to be made here.

The thing is that movie audiences are bigger than game audiences (I presume), they can make loads of money doing stuff like Avatar and Superhero movies, so why waste money on a COD movie? The general public want colorful fantasy movies and so Hollywood provides, at this point i would presume that a big expensive gritty military movie would be viewed as a risk with stuff like Elysium failing hard at the box office.