Call of Duty: Alien War

Call of Duty: Alien War is a 2014 Argentine-American science fiction film based on the video game franchise of the same name. It is the first Activision game to be adapted into a theatrical movie.

Call of Duty: Alien War was released on December 5, 2014 playing in 2D, 3D, and IMAX formats with an IMAX 3D release being shown in international markets. The film received mixed reviews from critics who praised the visuals and performances but criticized the plot and the screenplay but was nonetheless a box office success grossing $252 million worldwide over its budget of $80 million.

A sequel, Call of Duty: Revelations, was released on July 28, 2017, while a second and final sequel, subtitled Run of Combat, is expected to be released on February 2, 2024.

Plot
Coming soon!

Cast

 * Zachary Levi as Captain Jacob Simmons, a 24-year-old military captain who is the leader of the Planet Zorkon mission who ends up befriending people. Producers Justice Harris, Liam Waiters, and Kameron Adams were impressed by Levi's performances in Spiral (2007) and Shades of Ray (2008). Levi took inspiration from war films such as Saving Private Ryan (1998) and sci fi films like Alien (1978), but also hoped to deliver something "new and exciting" with his take on the character. Levi initially signed for six ACU films, including three Call of Duty films.


 * Michelle Williams as Lela Simmons, the wife of Jacob Simmons that is always supportive for her husband no matter what. She ends up going on the ship with Captain Jacob after finding out the mission may be dangerous.


 * Idris Elba as Colonel Burda
 * Harrison Ford as Quincent "Q" Jones
 * Ben Kingsley
 * Paul Rudd
 * Jared Harris
 * Donald Glover
 * Ving Rhames

In addition, Fred Tatasciore provides the demon voice.

Coming soon!

Development
By October 2003, Universal Studios was in final negotiations with Activision Films to make a film version of Call of Duty, to be released in the new technology of 3D. In July 2004, Zachary Levi was announced to star in the film. Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Films, said Levi was the studio's first choice to star in the film. As well, negotiations between Universal Studios and Activision Films were put on hold, with Activision executives planning to develop the film independently in order to maintain greater creative control. Universal was able to still distribute the film, but Activision Films would not resume talks until packaging the project with a writer and director. In October 2005, Ubisoft revealed the film would be co-produced with Xtranormal Films and distributed by Paramount Pictures. Xtranormal financed part of the film's production, in order for Activision to not shoulder much financial risk, yet still be able to be involved creatively; Treyarch and Honor Pictures also co-financed the film. Hirshberg also revealed Activision hoped to release the film along with a new game launch for the series.

In January 2007, George Huff was hired to write the film. In June 2007, Frank Marshall entered negotiations to produce the film, along with Fassbender and McCaughan, for Honor Pictures, and Eli Richbourg for Activision. In July, Scott Frank revealed he was rewriting the script. n January 2008, a Linkedin profile for executive producer Fannie Pailloux stated filming was scheduled to begin in August 2008. In April 2009, Adam Cooper and Bill Collage were hired to rewrite the script. By the end of April, Ken Turner was in talks to direct. In June, Olivia Munn expressed interest in appearing in the film.

Pre-production and Casting
On February 12, 2010, Activision's CEO Eric Hirshberg confirmed that Xtranormal had begun production on the film with an release date on December 27, 2013. In March 2014, Paramount shifted the film's release date to December 5, 2014, and said the film would be digitally remastered for IMAX 3D in post-production. In April 2010, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures was asked to co-distribute the film with Paramount, making Disney acquire the international distribution rights to the film while being released under its Touchstone Pictures label. The following day, Marion Cotillard was revealed to have joined the cast. Filming was expected to begin in late 2010. In June 2010, Levi revealed that filming was scheduled to begin in November 2011. In May 2011, Lisa Moore was in talks to star in the film, though in the following month, she took a role in Ponyman (another videogame movie to be produced by Xtranormal) instead, and Michelle Williams was cast in her place. Producers on the film include Justice Harris, Liam Waiters, and Kameron Adams. In July 2011, Idris Elba was in talks to play a villain which was later confirmed. In August, Ben Kingsley was cast as a partner to Levi's character, R. Lee Ermey cast as the general of the army that Levi's character is in, and Sylvester Stallone was cast as another villain alongside Elba's character, while Jared Harris and Donald Glover joined the cast in undisclosed roles. Waiters said that he wanted the cast to reflect the planet Norm as "one of [the] most diverse places in the world", with Harris adding that "we want everyone to recognize themselves in every portion of our universe. [With this cast] especially, it really feels like this is absolutely what has to happen and continue." This is also different from the previous short films, which Adams described as being "set in a lily-white Queens". Activision also made the decision to avoid references to Call of Duty games including characters although it included areas included in the games but with different names. In late October 2011, Levi's role was revealed as Captain Jacob Simmons the main protagonist; filming locations for the film were also announced. The film was also revealed to be part of the Activision Cinematic Universe (ACU) and aimed to have an R rating.

Filming
Principal Photography on the film began on November 4, 2011, at Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Fayette County, Georgia, under the working title Jim in a Pan. Salavtore Yino served as director of photography. Filming also took place in New York City as well. Levi said the filming in Atlanta Studios was cheaper than actually going out to areas that look similar to the background in the final film.

Casting continued after the start of production, with the inclusion of Chris Evans, Chadwick Boseman, Ving Rhames, Tyne Daly, Paul Rudd, Dave Chapelle, and Becky G in unspecified roles, with Domhnall Gleeson joining as an additional villain. At San Diego Comic-Con International 2012, Activision confirmed the castings of Boseman, Rudd, Daly, Chapelle, Gleeson, Becky G, Ermey, Rhames, and Ibla, while revealing Rhames, Boseman, Ebla, and Rudd's roles as Cadet Quinette Baker, Michael Herring, Larry "Exterminator" Jenkins, and Kerry Thompson, respectively, and announcing the casting of Tom Hanks as Lenny, the huge best friend of Jacob supporting him and helping him to defeat the aliens and the villains. It was also revealed that Elba's character is the villain of the film. Waiters praised Goldstein and Daley's drafts as "really fun and funny", and said that they "sort of established the broad strokes of the movie", with him and Ford, close friends since childhood, then re-writing the script based on specific ideas that Waiters had and things that he wanted to film, which he said was a "pretty substantial structural pass, rearranging things and building it into the sort of story arc we wanted it to be." McKenna and Sommers then joined the film to deal with changes to the script during filming, as "it's all a little bit flexible when you get to set. You try things out, and you just need someone to be writing while you're shooting.

Principal photography wrapped on December 12, 2011 in Chicago, Illinois, with some additional filming taking place later in Berlin, Germany, near the Brandenburg Gate.

Cinematography
The film was shot digitally with Arri Alexa XT in a distributed aspect ratio of 1:90:1. Cinematographer Jonathan Sela chose to work with Arri Alexa XT cameras due to discussions regarding the look of the film. He had pushed for a mix of ARRICAM and ALEXA for a blend of film and digital. but the cost of both packages and film was unreasonable so they used ALEXA exclusively. Sela had familiarity with the camera from previous commercial work.

Sela spoke of the idea that Stahelski, Leitch and himself wished to achieve a visual contrast between Jacob Simmons' normal non alien liife and the other of which he's drawn back into the underworld of alien hunting. "We wanted the first look to be soft and clean, and the second to be grittier, darker and sharper." They shot with a single camera so Sela used lenses and camera techniques to achieve the contrasting visuals. He describes the first section of the film as being far more static by stating that, "the camera never stops moving". For Alien War he had decided on using both anamorphic and spherical lenses, to which he combined a set of Hawk V-Lite Vintage '74 anamorphics with that of Cooke S4 sphericals. The initial plan was to use the anamorphic and spherical lenses in the first and second parts, respectively, to create the visual contrast; however, he decided against such a course of action as he felt camerawork alone sufficiently separated the worlds, allowing them to use anamorphics for day shoots and sphericals at night. Sela praised Hawk's Vintage '74 as "beautiful", though they flare considerably, which would have become overbearing during night-time shooting. He felt their daytime use gave a "hazy look [...which seemed...] more cinematic".

According to Sela, on-board ARRIRAW recording with the ALEXA XT cameras made a considerable difference with camerawork, stating, "Having the ALEXA XT with in-camera ARRIRAW is like going to back to an ARRICAM or an ARRIFLEX 435, which is amazing."[incomprehensible] There was a considerable amount of handheld camera work on the second section and usage of the ALEXA M allowed filming through windows and tight spaces, particularly for the car scenes.[112] Sela was recording ARRIRAW and used the whole sensor area of ALEXA's 4:3 for the anamorphic scenes, which allowed for the maximisation of the image quality for a 4K cinema release. The extra sensor area provided valuable data for later image processing.

Post-production
In January 2013, Adams confirmed that Elba would play Larry Jenkins / Exterminator, while Stallone and Gleeson was revealed as Malaki Artson / Bloodzilla and Jakobe Rogers / Killzilla respectively. In March 2013, Harrier said the film was undergoing re-shoots, and Chapelle was set to appear as Colonel Markwan Andrews through combat videos played during the cadet's training. Waiters called these scenes additional made to add more comic relief for the film as instead of giving tips and instructions on the battlefield, Andrews instead talks about his life and how he is rich from the military.

The film features multiple post-credit scenes. The first involving an egg from the Mom creature that was killed at the end of the film hatching to birth another Kunji monster. Waiters said this "was a very interesting scene showing possibility of a sequel and making inspiration on ideas for the sequel film." The second post-credits scene is one of Markwan Andrews own battle instruction video this time talking about being fired from the job after accidentally killing the highest Captain of the alien military. The third post-credits scene shows Jacob explaining the results of actually listening to Markwan Andrews resulting into having a $1 billion dollar check with this being an last minute addition to the film.

Cinematographer Jonathan Sela created his own IMAX master of the film rather than using the proprietary "DMR" process that IMAX usually uses with films not shot with IMAX cameras.

Visual Effects
Visual effects for the film were completed by Sony Pictures Imageworks, Method Studios, Luma Pictures, Digital Domain, Cantina Creative, Iloura, Trixter, and Industrial Light & Magic. Executive producer Victoria Alonso initially did not want Imageworks, which worked on all previous Activision films, to work on Alien War, in order to give it a different look than those earlier films. She changed her mind after seeing what she called "phenomenal" test material from the vendor.

Soundtrack
Coming soon!

Release
Alien War had its world premiere at the Dolby Theatre on November 25, 2014. In several countries, including the United Kingdom, the film was released as Call of Duty: Alien Inception, a decision that the directors were not informed about. It was released at cinemas in Italy and Norway December 2, and in the United States, Canada, and China on December 4. It is the first Hollywood feature to be released in the United States for the new panorama-like ScreenX format, which played in two locations in the U.S.—CGV Buena Park and CGV Cinemas—both in Los Angeles, California. Additionally, it played in 81 screens at select theaters in Korea, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Turkey and Indonesia. The film also played in 4D on 373 4DX screens worldwide. The film was released in IMAX in an expanded 1.9:1 aspect ratio with international markets having an IMAX 3D option. The film was rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for "strong bloody sci-fi violence and gore, pervasive language, drug use, and suggestive content."

Shortly before release, Alien Wars was allegedly stolen by a group of piracy hackers, who demanded a large sum of money from Paramount in order for them not to leak the unreleased film. The company refused to do so and worked with the FBI in order to uncover the identity of the group. Paramount CEO Brad Grey reported that hackers did not steal their movie.

Marketing
A set of eight promotional postage stamps were released on October 12, 2014 in the UK by the Royal Mail with artwork by Malcolm Tween. On September 19, 2014, Australia Post released a set of stamp packs. Tie-in promotional campaigns were done with Nissan Motors and Bell Media, among others. Two main trailers were released, followed by numerous television spots. Figurines of many of the characters were released in October, and advance tickets for Alien War went on sale in October.

Several tie-in books were released on the same day of the North American release of the movie, including Alien War: Visual Dictionary, and various children's reading and activity books. Related novelizations included the prequel book Cobalt Squadron, and the Canto Bight, a collection of novellas about Earth.

Home media
Call of Duty: Alien War was released on digital download by Paramount Home Media Distribution on March 10, 2015, and on Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, Ultra HD Blu-ray, and DVD on March 24, 2015. The digital and Blu-ray releases include behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted scenes, and a blooper reel. A 4K UHD Blu-ray release followed on May 8, 2018.

The physical releases in its first week of sale were the top home media release, according to NPD VideoScan data. The Blu-ray version accounted for 79% of the sales, with 13% of total sales coming from the Ultra HD Blu-ray version.

Box office
Call of Duty: Alien War grossed $105.9 million in the United States and Canada and $146.5 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $252.4 million against a budget of $70 million.

North America
Coming soon!

Outside North America
Coming soon!

Critical response
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 42% approval rating based on 317 reviews, and an average rating of 4.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Call of Duty: Alien War does whatever a usual videogame adaption cannot, delivering a colorful, fun adventure that fits snugly in the big screen without getting bogged down in franchise-building" Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 43 out of 100, based on 51 critics, indicating "mixed or average". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it an 89% overall positive score and a 74% "definite recommend".

Sara Stewart of the New York Post praised the film as "an endearingly awesome big brother to Lara Croft", attributing much of the "heavy-lifting" to Levi's performance and the "perfectly cast" Elba. She also noted Watts' focus on story and less on just fighting in the war going into the emotional parts of the film. Mike Ryan at Uproxx felt Alien War was the best videogame adaption yet, specifically praising the dark but light tone, younger and more optimistic portrayal of the protagonist, and Elba's performance—Ryan named the Creature twist reveal as one of his favorite scenes in the whole film. He said Alien War is "the kind of movie you leave and you're just in the best mood—and still will be days later." Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film unique and refreshing, praising its lower stakes and focus on the character's school life. He praised Levi as "terrific and well-cast", as well as the other cast members; Roeper believed that Elba's performance is more interesting than the character otherwise could have been. Owen Gleiberman of Variety felt the film was "just distinctive enough" from the previous videogame adaptions to become a "sizable hit", and highlighted its focus on making Captain Jacob Simmons a realistically youthful and grounded character. He found Levi to be likeable in the role, and thought the Creature twist was a positive direction for that character. He did criticize the vague take on the war's origin, but "the flying action has a casual flip buoyancy, and the movie does get you rooting for Jacob." At IndieWire, David Ehrlich criticized the film's military genre clichés and underwritten female characters, but praised the elements of the film that leaned into Simmons' military life and the humanity of the Creature.

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times gave the film a mixed review, criticizing the "dar" depiction of Simmons and Jones' "unevenly orchestrated" direction, but feeling that the film "finds its pace and rhythm by the end" and praising Elba's performance. The Hollywood Reporter's John DeFore found the film to be "occasionally exciting but often frustrating", and suggested it might have worked better if less focus had been put on integrating the film with an videogame universe. DeFore did praise Levi's performance as "winning" despite the script, and called Michelle Williams a scene-stealer. Mick LaSalle, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, said the film was a "pretty good videogame movie" that "breaks no new ground", not exploring the human side of the character enough and instead focusing on action that is not thrilling. At The Telegraph, Robbie Collinargued that "a little of the new Spider-Man went an exhilaratingly long way in Captain America: Civil War last year. But a lot of him goes almost nowhere in this slack and spiritless solo escapade." Collin criticized Watts' direction, but was positive of the cast, including Levi, Elba, Ford, and Williams.

Accolades
Coming soon!

Sequels
Main article: Call of Duty: Revelations 

A sequel was confirmed to be in production shortly after the film's opening weekend with Levi being confirmed to return. By February 2015, Levi stated that the studio was figuring out "who the villain is going to be and where we're going" in the sequel. Paramount later stated that the sequel will most likely rated PG-13 to increase box office sales although later the film was confirmed to maintain the R rating as director Ken Turner explained saying: "The R rating is basically the same as the videogames' M rating. Without the R rating, the film will lose its freshness." Kevin Spacey was later in talks to play the sequel's villain, Toxar, while Ford, Rhames, Glover, Williams, and Hanks were also confirmed to reprise their respective roles. Filming is scheduled to begin in July 2016 in Georgia. Clint Eastwood was added to the cast on May 27, 2016. The film was released on July 28, 2017 and ended up being even more successful than the original grossing $483.2 million worldwide including $232.9 million domestically.

Main article: Call of Duty: Run of Combat

A third and final film is expected to be released on February 2, 2024.

Main
To see the main transcript of the film, click here.

Trailers
To see the transcript for the trailers of the film, click here.