5 Reasons Yellowstone's Taylor Sheridan Is The Best Person To Make The Call Of Duty Film

After many years, numerous attempts, and even the likes of Steven Spielberg wanting to have a crack at it, Paramount is now fully underway in getting a "Call of Duty" live-action adaptation off the ground as a movie that will no doubt require ear plugs to come with your popcorn. One thing the studio needs to be concerned about now, however, is finding the right person to make the story accessible to diehard gamers and non-players alike.

Directors have come and gone trying to take a pass at "Call of Duty," with no success. But Paramount might already have the perfect man for the job. After some excellent films that he's either penned or directed himself and a plethora of programming to stream, all involving either gruff cowboys, gangsters, or globe-trotting war heroes, Taylor Sheridan feels like the perfect fit to shepherd this franchise. In fact, he isn't just one of the best choices to tackle "Call of Duty," he should be the only one on the list, and we have five good reasons why he should be calling the shots when turning one of the biggest video game franchises in the world into a movie that has the potential to be a huge hit.

When creating a hero for a Taylor Sheridan show, it's best to give them anger issues that they channel into the numerous (and often deadly) altercations they find themselves in, all because of the dark past they very rarely talk about. Coincidentally, that's almost the exact same criteria required for anyone that players have fought as or besides throughout the Call of Duty franchise. Characters like Soap McTavish, Captain Price, or the mysterious Ghost have histories dense enough to cover a cereal box, and frankly, that's all they need. It's also why Sheridan would be a perfect fit to bring any of these hard-as-nails heroes to life when "Call of Duty" makes it to the big screen.

Not to offend any fans of the games, but the first-person shooter franchise has thrived off of set pieces, not story beats. Sheridan, however, could find a sweet spot for the "Call of Duty" movie by paying just enough attention to both. By hinting at their history while they're plugging bad guys with bullets, he could turn some of the game's most beloved characters into the Rip Wheelers of the battlefield. Whatever film comes our way, it doesn't need to be a thought-provoking war movie, but a popcorn-chugging action-fest that Sheridan could deliver without breaking a sweat, or if he's feeling brave, expand into something with a touch of complexity.

Of the nine shows Sheridan has put on the air that have either run their course or have yet to reach the end, three of them are all set in the same world across a timeline stretching over 100 years, with more in the making. It's thanks to "1883," "1923," and "Yellowstone" that Sheridan has proven he has the capability to map out a world that in some cases bounces around in time, just as the Call of Duty franchise has been known to do.

Whether it's diving into robotic warfare or exploring some of the greatest conflicts in history, "Call of Duty" has changed with the times out of necessity, and presented different eras inhabited by different characters. This is the kind of terrain where Sheridan could flourish, fleshing out worlds and using a bit of extra firepower to do it. Plus, some of the projects he's already made have acted a soft inspiration for some blockbuster levels in previous installments of the Call of Duty franchise.

Some of the greatest moments in Call of Duty history have been when the games have unapologetically ripped off action sequences from well-known action movies. "Black Hawk Down," "The Rock," and even "Cliffhanger" have all made their way into some of the campaign and multiplayer maps in Call of Duty's 22-year-long history. At one point, though, the game looked to Taylor Sheridan's work in the Denis Villeneuve-directed crime thriller "Sicario" for inspiration.

The "Santa Seña Border Crossing" map from 2022's "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2," while massively disliked, mirrored the intense scene at the border in the 2015 film, with the campaign section also seeing characters taking on drug cartels as well. The links between the game and the film don't stop there, either, as back in 2018, when one of the billion attempts were being made to bring Call of Duty to theaters, "Sicaro 2: Day of the Soldado" director Stefano Sollima was tasked with adapting the video game franchise before things fell apart. Now, with Paramount getting hold of the IP, perhaps the smartest move would be to hand the reins over to the man that's been such an important influence on the franchise to take it from here, instead. After all, it's not like he's led the company wrong so far.

At this point, Taylor Sheridan could put his name on just about any script and it feels likely that Paramount would back him. Besides the nine television shows he has under his belt and the batch of others that are on the way, there really is no stopping the dude behind the Duttons to expand his dominance on Paramount mountain. The studio trusts him implicitly. With that in mind, it feels like a smart way to ensure a hit with a "Call of Duty" movie might be to put "From the Creator of 'Yellowstone'" in the marketing materials.

Whatever Sheridan scribbled down wouldn't have to be bound tightly to the history of the first-person shooter, anyway. Plenty of recent video game adaptations have thrived because they've veered away from the source material ("Fallout," "Sonic the Hedgehog"). And if the studio needed a proof of concept, Sheridan's most recent action-packed series made the best argument for why he can handle a blockbuster action movie with soldiers on top secret missions and yelling cool lines at each other during gun fights.

After breaking away from Yellowstone ranch, letting the "Tulsa King" rule his kingdom, and making sure the "Mayor of Kingstown" does ... whatever it is he does (something with prisons?), one of Sheridan's biggest successes of late has been the Zoe Saldaña-led action show, "Lioness." Recently renewed for a third season, the show follows Saldaña as the head of the "Lioness Engagement Team," which is comprised of female undercover operatives that are tasked with infiltrating high priority targets before taking them down. (Naturally, Sheridan has also managed to squeeze a role in for himself as Cody Spears.)

The very first episode validates that Sheridan is the perfect person for a "Call of Duty" movie. In an effort to extract an operative, Saldaña's Joe McNamara is calling in air strikes against small army invasions and sending in squads via helicopter to pull her soldier out. It's pulse-pounding stuff that would get fans of the beloved video game franchise itching to drop in on a game. That's exactly the kind of impact a video game adaptation should be aiming for, and if Sheridan managed to do that in the first five minutes of a TV episode, imagine what he'd be capable of with an entire movie to play around in.