Destructoid Checkpoint: Call of Duty and Steven Spielberg

In 1975, Steven Spielberg changed cinema forever with the release of Jaws. He crafted a subversive summer movie, one that cast a long shadow of dread and doom across the golden sands as millions of people prepared to go to the beach. 

Jaws was a slasher movie released at the height of the summer, and that element of fear crawled under people's skin. Word got out that there was a terrifying movie to be seen, and people flocked to the cinemas to watch it, enjoying a break from the heat. The concept of the summer blockbuster had arrived, and it would become a cinematic juggernaut for the next fifty years.

With a mere seven million dollars, Jaws would bring in half a billion at the global box office, making it the highest-grossing movie of all time. That’s twenty-one million and one and a half billion, respectively, when adjusted for inflation. Prior to that, the title belonged to The Sound of Music, released in 1965 and earning a paltry quarter of a billion (or $750 million in today’s dollars). 

He would follow that up with a run that included Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Indiana Jones trilogy, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Empire of the Sun, and Jurassic Park. And those are just movies he directed. He also produced films like Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Goonies, and Poltergeist.  

I realize it has been a little while since those years, but I want people to understand that, at one point, and technically to this very day, Steven Spielberg was HIM. He possesses a profound understanding of the art of cinema, consistently associating himself with or producing work that rises to the very top of cultural influence. 

So, it makes sense that when he expressed interest in making a Call of Duty movie to Activision, they told him to get lost.

Wait…what?

The numbers, Steven. What do they mean?

Reports this week indicate that Spielberg had indeed expressed interest in bringing the Call of Duty franchise, the most successful first-person shooter series in history, to the big screen. Activision instead opted to go with Paramount. The reason? Spielberg, scientifically proven cinematic turbo genius, wanted too much creative control. The guy who directed Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan to Oscar wins, and is the third most nominated director at the Oscars of all time, wanted to direct his movie without interference.

Spielberg even understands gaming to a great extent, as not only is he a massive fan of gaming in general and Call of Duty in particular, but he also created the original Medal of Honor in 1999. 

The director is somewhat famous for “The Spielberg Deal.” If he is directing a movie, he gets final say. The final cut is his. The casting is his. The script is his. He owns the creative process with the confidence of someone who has been a pillar of the industry for decades. Having Spielberg offer to get involved with your project is akin to having Neil Armstrong offer you directions to the moon; there is strong historical precedent that he knows what he is talking about.

I can only imagine the thought of entrusting the future of what they will already be foreseeing as a cinematic universe to someone they cannot pressure or creatively bully was a horrifying thought for the folks at Activision. Imagine having a thirty-billion-dollar franchise you barely understand and not being able to beat the vision out of an all-time great who has expressed interest in helping you turn it into a film.

Success is Paramount

Okay, I am somewhat done being mean on this one, as I do understand the impetus for going with Paramount. Currently headed by Larry Ellison. Ellison’s Skydance has helmed various Mission: Impossible movies, World War Z, legitimately good flick True Grit, legitimately bad flicks about Jack Reacher, and very mid Star Trek movies. They have made Terminator films and things like Geostorm. They make a lot of Ryan Reynolds movies, just not the good one. 

Skydance also acquired Paramount to form Paramount Skydance Corporation, something that folks at Activision were likely very impressed with, having recently been acquired themselves. 

You can probably see what Activision sees. A company with lots of experience picking up other people’s IP and doing a reasonable job with it. Never quite nailing it, but never killing the franchise. A potential safe bet and steady hand. A measurable element of an equation that tells them if they put in X, they get out Y.

I understand it, I do. Activision would have inherited the stink of the Warcraft movie with the Blizzard merger. A movie so bad that, to this very day, you can still hear Blizzard staff sobbing in the bathrooms about it. It’s like preparing to cross the street and watching the person ahead of you get turned into a learning experience for student orthopedic surgeons by an out-of-control garbage truck. Yes, you still need to cross the street, but you also like the way your arms and legs only bend in the middle. 

Still, it makes you think, and that could be the biggest issue when the movie eventually comes out. There will always be the shadow of Spielberg looming over it now. What he might have done, who he might have cast. Steven strikes me as a Cold War-era Black Ops guy, and I think it would have worked. John Williams on the soundtrack. Janusz Kaminsky behind the camera as cinematographer. It could have been more than just an action movie. It could have been cinema.

After all, the man took Ready Player One, a literary war crime, and made money with it. You can’t tell me he is not able to perform miracles.