14 DAY TRIAL // Video game publisher Activision is getting ready to become a more multimedia-focused company and wants to bring some of its most important universes to both small and big screens with an announcement that it is working on a Skylanders television show and a movie series based on Call of Duty.
The company is eager to use the big fan bases of both franchises in order to create successful products that can, in turn, draw in a range of other customers to the video games themselves.
Nick van Dyk is the leader of the new entity, which is called the Activision Blizzard Studios.
Skylanders Academy is an animated television series that is at the moment in the production phase under the leadership of Eric Rogers, who has previously worked on a range of successful series like Futurama, Brickleberry, NYPD Blue and Lie to Me.
It seems that the story will be, in part, based on the narrative of the original video game, with Justin Long set to lend his voice to Spyro, Ashley Tisdale becoming Stealth Elf, Jonathan Banks as Eruptor and Norm Macdonald playing Glumshanks.
Activision is not saying when it plans to launch the Skylanders TV show and whether it will partner up with a traditional distribution channel or if it plans to deliver it to fans via streaming or by linking it to future video game content.
Call of Duty will become a movie series
Activision knows that the series is the most popular it has and aims to use it for classic movies, with the possibility of creating a television adaptation at some point.
The development process seems to be less advanced than with Skylanders, and that means no details have been offered about who might write, direct and star in the coming films.
Fans should probably expect to hear more details about both initiatives in 2016, but actual launch dates for the first movie and the TV series will probably have to wait until 2017.
Activision Blizzard seems to have ambitious plans for its biggest franchises, and a Warcraft movie will be released next year, created in collaboration with Legendary Pictures.
It will portray the first phases of the war between Humans and Orcs, showing the way both sides are pushed into open conflict after they initially meet.
The main roles will be played by Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell, Ben Schnetzer, Robert Kazinsky.
Presumably, for both the Skylanders TV show and for Call of Duty movies, Activision Blizzard will rely on internal resources and will not partner up with any other major studios.
Microsoft tried to push its own Halo franchise into movie and TV series territory, but it then shuttered its own dedicated division and said that it was focusing more on the video game elements of the series.
Traditionally, films based on video games tend to offer limited quality and rarely reach more than the core fan base, so it will be interesting to see whether the resources that Activision Blizzard has access to will lead to higher quality products and a broadening of the player base in the long run.