Taylor Sheridan might be leaving for NBCUniversal in a couple of years, but he’s still got a couple of projects to take care of for Paramount.
Rumors of a live-action Call of Duty movie have been swirling for years now. It only makes sense to jump in on the trend of turning well-established brands into feature films. It’s worked for Transformers, Minecraft, and Barbie, and now, it’s almost certain to work for Call of Duty with Taylor Sheridan now attached (according to Deadline).
For those non-gamers out there, Call of Duty is a first-person shooter that’s considered to be one of the most successful franchises in the history of video games. It’s been the best selling video game series for over 15 years, and hundreds of millions of people play the game across the globe. That’s what you call a “built-in audience,” if I’m not mistaken.
Pair that with the fact that Taylor Sheridan and Peter Berg are now developing a movie based on the video game franchise and you’ve got a film that could be too big to fail. Paramount landed the rights to the Call of Duty franchise, and shortly after that, they got Sheridan and Berg to sign on to write and develop the film.
Sheridan and Berg will co-write the highly anticipated movie, and Berg will go on to direct it without Sheridan. Both will be producers for the film (along with David Glasser).
Fans familiar with the work of both A-List filmmakers know that Sheridan and Berg have worked together and had success before. The two lifelong friends brought to life both Hell Or High Water and Wind River, and those were both acclaimed (the former was nominated for four Oscars).
That being said, Sheridan and Berg are both very accomplished individually. Taylor Sheridan’s resume speaks for itself – Yellowstone, Landman, Mayor of Kingstown, 1883, 1923, Tulsa King, and Lioness. He simply doesn’t miss. Much of the same can be said about Peter Berg. He’s the director and writer behind such hits as Friday Night Lights, Painkiller, American Primeval, and Lone Survivor.
Paramount is set to distribute the live-action Call of Duty film, and it might be one of the last things that Taylor Sheridan does for the Paramount Skydance corporation before he moves on to his new media home.
It was this past weekend when Deadline broke the news that Taylor Sheridan would be leaving his entertainment home of Paramount for a deal with NBCUniversal. The creator, writer and director is expected to finish out his TV contract with Paramount (through the end of 2028) and then take his talents to NBC at the beginning of 2029.
Sources are saying that he’ll actually start making movies for NBC Universal at the beginning of 2027, and that the movie side of the deal will run for eight years.
On the other hand, the overall deal that Sheridan has struck up with NBCUniversal to make TV shows will start on January 1, 2029, and will reportedly stretch five years… paying Taylor Sheridan somewhere around $1 billion to make 20-plus shows.
