Call of Duty Movie Is Finally Happening!

[Music] So, Call of Duty is getting a liveaction movie after 22 years and half a billion copies sold globally. So, the new Paramount owners, they're pulling out the checkbook. They are on a spending spree and secured the Call of Duty rights. They also spent a lot of money on South Park, which I am enjoying immensely as a fan for 22 years as well, I think, or 27 years. So Paramount, if you remember, also does a lot of other video game movies like the Sonic series that does really well. Bill, sadly, they also made that Halo TV series that we loved and then didn't love. And then so Chris, some of the people in Deconstructor of Fun Slack channel apply to join are looking for trans media fight between you and I. I think they're going to be surprised with this. So I'm going to let you go first. Okay. Be a gentleman. Yeah,
I am a broken record on this stuff. Like clearly these guys are on their ass

right now, right? They are losing badly to Battlefield, right? And they should lose significant share this year to EA and Battlefield. They can't execute on a marketing campaign to save their goddamn lives, right? There's chaos in the studios and around Microsoft in general. Their technology is just not up to par anymore. The visuals are just not there compared to Battlefield. But a liveaction movie, yes, check. You know that is the way to the light, right? That's the way to the light. They spend all their effort, all their emphasis on building a live action model for Paramont. Dude, that will bring them back to the light, right? So, as they continue to deteriorate share, let's just make some [ __ ] movies with Paramount, right? Yeah, that'll do it. That'll bring them back, right? So, no, this is dumb.
This is not going to be a fight because I agree with you in this case. So this shouldn't happen and actually is likely detrimental to the brand. There is no upside for them. They are already where

they need to be. I think when you're doing this kind of IP extension and franchise extension where you're going into linear content that has just one story line, you do that when you're trying to reinvigorate a franchise where you're trying to set up the world building of the franchise. There is so much more downside opportunity on this than upside. Just for a second, think of how easy it is to make a shitty movie. This summer is I had just heard a stat this morning. It is the worst box office summer besides COVID, take that out of it, since 1981. Like movies are not driving cultural moments like they used to be. And getting this for Call of Duty isn't going to work. though. Also, the IP is just doesn't make sense. And the core fantasy, and I know Phil and I are going to argue over this, when you play Call of Duty, the core fantasy is I just want to be a badass military person with the coolest gun. I don't really care anything about the story or the setting.

Who are the characters? Like, nobody cares about that when you're playing COD. You want to go in and like, what is it? Teaag your, you know, like the the opponent and yell at another 10-year-old on comms. like they want to be Seal Team 6. They don't care about Soap or any of these other characters that I barely even remember. And by the way, which one are you going to have? Are you going to have like Modern Warfare or Black Ops? And you're going to have the studios yelling like, "Which one are you doing?" And so another point is back in the day when my buddies, you know, at Hasbro were making Nerf blasters, they actually tried to make Call of Duty Nerf blasters. It was a little tough with like the emrating and everything like that, but nobody cares about those blasters because there's no personality behind what is just a weapon. That brand doesn't extend into different lines of business because it there is no kind of personality. I think they're painting themselves into a box and are going to make it worse. So harsh take from usually the champion of a franchise strategy, but yeah.

Uh th this should have been done ages ago and this isn't even a troll take. This is the number one franchise in gaming. And don't me wrong, your criticism of the IP gen is totally on point. Like Call of Duty has never been known for narrative. Like there is one character people can name. Do you guys know the one character?
Is it Soap? That was the only guy I know.
Oh, I didn't even know that one. I was going to say uh Captain Fischer, right? And there's Captain Fisher. And there's one there's one other recognizable IP element in Call of Duty. That's a character. Do you know which one it is? The title image we're looking at right now that not screen sharing.
It was from Modern Warfare. You remember the skull face?
The the gentleman with the skull face.
And remember there was
the picture I think in Afghanistan or Iraq during the war that a soldier had something akin to that and that's what they used as inspiration. That's how deep the franchise goes really in terms of narrative. Don't me wrong, there's a single player. There is narrative there. Don't but it's not known for that narrative. That's not what carried the franchise. And so I think that's

something they got to figure out. Chris Anos, by the way, on the shooter podcast made exactly the point you're making, Jen. Like the point is for you to be an action hero.
The main character is the gun. He explicitly says that. But are you kidding me? This is the biggest franchise. Of course you need to take a shot on goal for this. Of course you need to take a shot on this. Like I think it's silly not to give this a shot. And I think just to clarify my trans media position, my trans media position isn't that gaming IP can't be great movies. I mean that's false. I mean, look at how much money Super Mario and the Sonic franchise has made. I mean, it's it's gobstocking how much money that I mean, it's an incredible amount of money that Sonic has made. We're up to the third Sonic movie. And guess what? They're actually good. I I just can't even believe they're actually good. And so, of course, you need to take a shot on goal with this. The only thing I disagree with is when you do these trans media projects, people like to put in the P&L that we're going to have all these uplifts across the franchise. That's the thing I disagree with. Not that gaming can't be great. Trans media can't be great media. The fantasy stuff, Jen, I don't know what's the fantasy of Sonic. What's the fantasy of Mario? Be an Italian plumber. Be a

blue hedgehog. Run really fast.
Characters. So, they're characters that have a world. And also, all of the successful video game franchises are for kids. Minecraft, Sonic, Mario are familyfriendly designed for kids to take them into the fantasy and help them understand and bring them into this world of where we are today. All of those are, you know, things we grew up with. Like they're all established franchises except for Minecraft, but Minecraft has now been around for 10 plus years or something like that. So, I think that where you do see uplift in the P&L is as someone who has done toy business recently, all of those movie properties done by video games absolutely increase your merchandise and the rest of your franchise sales.
That's fair. That's fair.
So, that that is so the franchise grows. I think there is a bump in if they do franchise planning right and there is a game that's available or an updates available. Minecraft did see bumps in a lot of the playership at that time.

No, it did not. No. No. No. Stop. No. No. No. No. We looked at the numbers. It was a small bump in CCU.
Dude, what kid plays on Steam?
There's no Steam Minecraft. There's no Steamcraft. We're looking at Sensor Tower Mobile.
Let's table that one because I don't know if I agree. Now, I don't know how big the bump was or if they sold DLC, if they had DLC, you know, ready because on that game it's a little bit of a different monetization
unlike Riot. Sorry, continue.
Well, yes, that Yeah, that's a whole other topic.
I think they should have done this ages ago when single player mattered, when those characters were actually more interesting to people. But this game is a multiplayer shooter, right? And as you said, the guns are the heroes, right? And you can't build a [ __ ] movie out of that. Now, I would argue that they do have quite a narrative with their characters, and I think people that are really fans of Call of Duty will argue that, but no one gives a [ __ ] Like, the majority of the people don't care, right? And so, you're basically creating a action game with characters that

nobody knows and narrative has gone over like the last 15 years in terms of like the different narratives on the different
Yeah. Which one?
Yeah. How how you couple that together is going to be [ __ ] impossible. I think it is far more likely they make a bad movie and that does not help them at all. It actually hurts them. Yeah. You know, and and that's the challenge and it's not what the audience is gonna want, right? The audience does not care. The core Call of Duty audience doesn't want a [ __ ] movie. I would argue.
Yeah. They just want a multiplayer game that is the best multiplayer shooter that they can possibly play. Like there is no benefit from selling a story or a character. Um especially cuz they refresh it every year too.
Back but back in the day, the single player was more relevant. But that's not the the relevant part of Call of Duty anymore.
I mean, when I play COD, I only play single player. That's how I remember SOAP cuz I like the Modern Warfare series, I guess, a little bit better than Black Ops. So, anyway, [Music]