During BlizzCon, Activision Blizzard has announced that it is getting into the film and TV game, with the newly launched Activision Blizzard Studios developing a Call of Duty movie for release in 2017, as well as a Skylanders animated series, Skylanders Academy, which will launch next year.
“Activision Blizzard Studios has the unique advantage of starting with a library of world-class intellectual property that includes some of the largest franchises which have not yet been developed in film and television,” states Nick van Dyk, co-president of the studio. “Our library spans more than 30 years of global entertainment culture.”
“The Call of Duty IP is much greater than the core IP of Marvel,” van Dyk says. “Our players spent 14 billion hours last year of playing and viewing our content. To put that in perspective, that’s more time spent watching every movie released last year in every movie theater in the world. That’s why we’re pretty excited to address this demand.”
Before Call of Duty, Skylanders Academy will make its way to the small screen, with Eric Rogers (Futurama) serving as showrunner and a voice cast that includes Justin Long as Spyro the Dragon, Ashley Tisdale as Stealth Elf, Norm MacDonald as Glumshanks and Jonathan Banks as Eruptor.
“We’re really focused on making fantastic standalone, quality content that can help broaden the appeal of [the Skylanders] franchise,” van Dyk says. “I want to make something that my 13-year-old daughter finds funny and my 7-year-old finds entertaining, and that I can enjoy and laugh along with them.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=W04aXcyQ0NQ
Originally published November 7, 2015. Updated April 15, 2018.
