Popverse's top stories

• Think you want the Critical Role live events to be streamed into your home? According to lore-keeper Dani Carr, you don't
• DC Studios Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters - what changed, what got added, and what went away after the first announcement
• The MCU’s original Thor director wants to return for a Logan-inspired “final story” with Chris Hemsworth

You don’t necessarily have to be a fan of a video game to make a good adaptation of it. Mortal Kombat 2 director Simon McQuoid has admitted to not seeing the weirdness of the source material as an asset when making the first film, after all. However, you’d hope that the person directing something as high-profile as, say, Call of Duty, wouldn’t have an overall negative perception of the video games. Unless Peter Berg’s feelings towards gamers have changed in the past decade, however, that may not be the case.

Said feelings come from an interview that Peter Berg did back in 2013, where he talked about his feelings toward gamers, with a particular frustration with those who play Call of Duty. Back then, at least, Berg wasn’t keen on people playing war-based video games. “Pathetic. Pathetic. Keyboard courage. Can’t stand it,” Berg said. “The only people that I give a Call of Duty get-out-of-jail-free card to is the military. They’re out there serving and they're bored and they want to entertain themselves? Okay, maybe. Kids? Uh-uh.” He later followed up these comments by saying, “I think anyone that sits around playing video games for four hours… It’s weak. Get out, do something.”

Of course, this was over a decade prior to Berg being tapped to direct the upcoming Call of Duty movie, so we could assume (though he’s not made any statements to confirm it) that his feelings towards video games have changed; being offered a giant sack of money to make a movie about video games will do that to you. However, the intensity of his comments makes us think that these aren’t feelings that will quickly go away.

However, I would argue that these comments about video games and Call of Duty in particular make Peter Berg the right person to make a Call of Duty movie. These games have always been thinly-veiled military propaganda, with explorations of character and nuance about motivation overshadowed by plots that largely revolve around going to the next location and killing as many (usually non-white) people as possible. Looking at Berg’s work as a director, he’s not opposed to portraying the US military in an unrealistically positive light. I saw Battleship; it wasn’t subtle about its pro-military stance in a film about, checks notes, a children’s board game. 

Activision, the developers of the Call of Duty series, haven't exactly been kind to their players over the years anyway. Each release contains only marginal upgrades or improvements, with every iteration becoming more of a live-service disaster. While they might not call their customers "pathetic," they don't seem to respect them much, so I'd say that Peter Berg will fit right in here.

Will these comments from Peter Berg, given in an interview more than a decade ago, impact his place as director of the Call of Duty movie? Probably not, nor should they. I’d say they make him the perfect person for the job.

Want to know what's coming up next in pop culture? Check out Popverse's guides to:

• Upcoming movies
• Upcoming TV shows
• Upcoming comics
• Upcoming games
• Upcoming fiction books
• Upcoming comic conventions