Peter Berg Says Call of Duty Movie Will Focus on the Cost of War

Director Peter Berg says his live-action Call of Duty movie will explore the cost of war and its effects on people, rather than rely on surface-level violence. The film, due in cinemas on 30 June 2028, is being made for Paramount Pictures with Activision, the company behind the game series.

Berg spoke about the project in an interview with ComicBook, as reported by Eurogamer. He described the series' lead characters, Captain Price, Soap, Ghost and Alex, as complicated people rather than cartoon or comic-book heroes. He said the film will carry a strong sense of what war does to the people who fight it, which he called "duty".

Berg also said the film will probably not be as graphically violent as his Second World War drama The Mosquito Bowl. That film, based on a real 1944 football game between Marines in the Pacific, arrives on Netflix on 25 November. Berg has co-written the Call of Duty script with Taylor Sheridan, who also joined the project as a writer and producer when it was announced in October 2025.

The movie will be set in the Modern Warfare universe, the part of the series that Berg says deals with the burden of being a soldier who puts himself between danger and other people. He said the games it draws on are about the cost of war, and the film aims to carry that theme forward.

IGN summed up Berg's approach as going dark, but not too dark. That fits with his comments on the film's tone: serious, but not built around gore.

For players, the news is a clearer picture of what the film is aiming for. Video game adaptations have a mixed record with audiences, and a director who talks about characters and consequences gives fans something concrete to weigh. For anyone new to the series, the film's Modern Warfare setting means the story will sit inside one of the franchise's best-known runs of games.

The release date is the one fixed point so far. Further casting, trailers and a formal cast announcement remain to be confirmed.