Call of Duty Movie: Peter Berg Directs, Taylor Sheridan Writes

Peter Berg to Direct a Call of Duty Movie, Taylor Sheridan Set to Write – Why This Pairing Actually Makes Sense

A long-gestating Call of Duty film appears to have found its creative core. According to industry chatter highlighted by Deadline, filmmaker Peter Berg is in the director’s chair, with Taylor Sheridan penning the script and collaborating on the story. On paper, that pairing reads like a tactical loadout built for kinetic realism: Berg has a proven taste for muscular, boots-on-the-ground action (The Kingdom, Lone Survivor, Mile 22), while Sheridan’s name is shorthand for flinty, character-driven tension (Sicario, Wind River, and the sprawling Yellowstone universe, including 1883, Mayor of Kingstown, Tulsa King, and Special Ops: Lioness).

Crucially, Berg and Sheridan have worked together before on Hell or High Water – a 2016 crime drama that earned four Oscar nominations and showed they can extract human stakes from high-stress scenarios. If a Call of Duty movie has any shot at respecting the series’ fan base, it needs that tension: not just firefights, but moral pressure, chain-of-command friction, and decisions that sting after the gun smoke clears.

Why Now? The Studio Clock Is Ticking

Paramount recently took point on the project, and there’s a scheduling nuance pushing momentum. Sheridan’s current pipeline with Paramount sunsets in 2028; starting January 1, 2029, he’s expected to focus on film and TV for NBCUniversal under a five-year pact. That timeline effectively puts a fuse on development, encouraging an aggressive push to outline, script, and mount production well before the deal handoff. In short: if this movie is happening with Sheridan, the window to act is sooner rather than later.

What Kind of Call of Duty Film Could Work?

Fans are divided. Some fear a toyetic, quip-heavy blockbuster in the vein of the G.I. Joe films. Others crave a lean, Sicario-style pressure cooker with the vibe of a late–Cold War or post–9/11 black-ops thriller – less one-liners, more unease and consequence. Sheridan’s track record suggests the latter is plausible: he writes hard choices and quiet dread well, and he doesn’t romanticize violence. Berg’s camera, meanwhile, favors tactile geography, boots slipping in dust, radios hissing in the fog of war. Combine those sensibilities and you land closer to Black Hawk Down than banter-loaded spectacle.

That said, casting will make or break the mission. There’s no official word on stars yet. The franchise’s vast canon gives multiple entry points – an 80s CIA vibe, a JSOC manhunt, or an espionage tangle that treats technology, proxy conflicts, and information warfare as characters in their own right. The challenge isn’t set pieces; it’s choosing a perspective that feels honest and specific rather than a stitched-together highlight reel.

Synergy Check: Black Ops 7 Launches November 14

On the gaming front, Activision is rolling out Black Ops 7 on November 14. Its campaign reportedly picks up threads from Black Ops 2, jump-cutting to 2035 as JSOC Commander David “Section” Mason (Milo Ventimiglia) and the Specter One team confront the specter of Raúl Menéndez – thought dead – promising to “burn the world down” in three days. Alongside Mason are Mike Harper (Michael Rooker), Eric Samuels (John Eric Bentley), Leilani “50/50” Tupuola (Frankie Adams), and Colonel Troy Marshall (Y’lan Noel); the plotline also weaves in The Guild, a former criminal syndicate turned tech giant led by CEO Emma Kagan (Kiernan Shipka). A film doesn’t need to mirror the game’s 2035 setting, but it can echo what makes Black Ops tick: paranoia, disinformation, and choices that won’t wash clean.

Rumor Report: Confidence Level

The Bottom Line

A Call of Duty movie rises or falls on tone. If Berg and Sheridan steer toward grounded espionage and moral ambiguity – rather than noise and snark – the brand finally has a cinematic template worthy of its name. Until casting lands and production dates firm up, consider this a high-confidence development with a fast-track clock already ticking.