14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that Activision Blizzard has filed for a trademark set to protect the Call of Duty name when it comes to its use in “Pre-recorded movies featuring comedy, drama, action, adventure, music, theatrical performances and/or animation.” The filing was made on September 21 and it appears that it is at least in part related to the upcoming launch of Modern Warfare 2, which is set to arrive on November 10 and will probably be the biggest videogaming release of the year.
Other hints related to a Call of Duty movie popped up as early as May 2009, when The Hollywood Reported talked about a deal regarding a movie based on the popular videogame franchise. At that point, Bobby Kotick, the Chief Executive Officer of Activision Blizzard, refused to comment on the issue.
Recently, a Twitter entry from Robert Bowling, who is the creative strategist at developer Infinity Ward, read "Talking game films." The other person part of the conversation seems to have been Xavier Gens, who directed the Hitman movie, another title based on a videogame. Activision has not yet commented on these latest developments.
The Call of Duty franchise was initially released in 2003 for the PC and since then, it has been split into two sub-series, one based on World War II, which is being handled by Treyarch, the other dealing with modern military conflict, handled by Infinity Ward. The latest release in both branches have been really successful, with the first Modern Warfare title selling more than 13 million since release and with World at War moving about 11 million units.
Until an official announcement related to a movie comes from Activision and from a partner movie making company, it pays to speculate on what the film might be about. Given the popularity of the Nazi Zombie mode in World at War, it would be interesting to see the partners delivering a survival horror experience to all the fans of Call of Duty.