The Call Of Duty's Movie Director Had Harsh Words For Those Who Play Video Games
by Ryan Scott · /Film"Call of Duty" is one of the biggest video game franchises in history, and it's soon becoming a movie franchise as well. "Yellowstone" creator Taylor Sheridan is writing the "Call of Duty" movie for Peter Berg, who is due to direct the adaptation of Activision's wildly popular shooter. Berg has directed action movies such as "Lone Survivor" and "Deepwater Horizon," among others, making him seem like a good fit on paper. The problem? He apparently doesn't have much respect for a certain type of video games or the people who play them.
As spotted recently by a user by the name of Neat on ResetEra, in a December 2013 interview for Esquire, Berg had some big thoughts regarding war video games. When asked about his take on war video games as "an advocate of American manhood," he had this to say:
"Pathetic. Keyboard courage. Can't stand it. The only people that I give a Call of Duty get-out-of-jail-free card to is the military. They're out there serving and they're bored and they want to entertain themselves? Okay, maybe. Kids? Uh-uh."
Yikes. The "Call of Duty" movie already has at least one major problem to overcome, namely that the franchise doesn't have any major human characters to anchor the story to. Now it seemingly has to also overcome a director who, based on these comments, doesn't much respect the source material or the people who like that source material. Speaking further, touching on Navy SEALs who play games like "CoD," Berg added:
"Some of them do. But I tell them I think it's pathetic. I think anyone that sits around playing video games for four hours ... it's weak. Get out, do something."
Has Peter Berg dramatically changed his tune about video games?
There is an awful lot to unpack here. For one thing, Peter Berg is a filmmaker with a mixed resume. He's made acclaimed movies like "Patriots Day" and "Friday Night Lights," but he's also responsible for movies like "Battleship," one of the biggest box office bombs of the 2010s. He's not a director with a track record of exceptional commercial successes. That's not to say he's not capable, but that was already something that Paramount and Activision had to consider when hiring Berg for the gig.
Beyond that, companies like Activision have billions of dollars on the line. The box office pales in comparison to global video game sales. A bad movie does far more harm than a good movie does benefit, is one way to look at it. It's a big reason why Rockstar never let a "Grand Theft Auto" movie happen: The risk wasn't worth the reward.
But a "Call of Duty" movie makes a lot of sense, due to Berg's track record with action flicks, coupled with a writer like Taylor Sheridan. But a man at the helm who has such vocal disdain for video games and those who play them? That's tough to reconcile. It makes Activision turning down Steven Spielberg's request to direct a "Call of Duty" movie all the more eye-popping.
Who knows? Maybe Berg has changed his tune over the last decade or so. Maybe he just believes this is an excuse to make a big-budget war movie and he doesn't have to think of it as a video game movie. Either way, this is now a very large elephant in the room that feels like it needs to be addressed.
"Call of Duty" is set to hit theaters on June 30, 2028.