Activision has no shortage of big hitter video game franchises, but it's a fairly safe bet that Skylanders and Call of Duty are the biggest successes to come from the company. It seems that Activision wants to continue to hit new heights and has just recently announced that it's opening Activision Blizzard Studios, a company that will focus on adapting Activision's gaming franchises to film and TV.
In terms of concrete plans, Skylanders Academy is the first project the studio will undertake. A kids show aimed at further increasing brand recognition, Skylanders Academy will feature the voice talent of Justin Long, Ashley Tisdale, Jonathan Banks, and Norm Macdonald as Spyro, Stealth Elf, Eruptor, and Glumshanks, respectively. No release window was given, but we can likely expect to hear more about this over the next couple months.
Additionally, the studio has announced its intent to bring Call of Duty to the silver screen. While there aren't any firm plans in place, yet, it seems that movies will be first priority with TV shows being an additional possibility.
What do you think? Is this a good move on Activision's part? Are you interested in anything that's been revealed so far? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
[source eurogamer.net]
Comments 43
You guys know that Blizzard has nothing to do with this, it's all Activision . Activision and Blizzard are ran as two seperate entities.
No. Please not.
@Tasuki Afraid not, it's literally called Activision Blizzard Studios. Maybe we'll be getting some Warcraft stuff, too?
So that's why they bought King - they wanted to make a Candy Crush Saga movie!
@IceClimbers Shh, don't give them ideas!
@MitchVogel Yes it is called Activision Blizzard but Activision does their things (CoD, Skylanders) and Blizzard does their own (WoW, Starcraft, Diablo etc.) They don't influence each other. If they did then we would be hearing stuff about CoD and Skylanders this weekend during Blizzcon along with all the WoW, Starcraft, Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone stuff but they don't because they act as seperate companies.
And also there is a Warcraft movie coming in June and no Activision had nothing to do with it.
Oh god, no.
Not sure why people are being so negative. If you don't want it you don't have to watch it, stop being childish.
Makes sense to me, a cartoon series for Skylanders in a no-brainer to get kids excited for the franchise again. Honestly I'm surprised it's not happened already!
CoD movie? Well again the user base will love it. All it has to be is a half decent war film and it'll do well.
Neither are things that interest me but I'm curious to see how they both pan out. Good luck to them!
@IceClimbers Watch 10 mins for free, after that each half an hour is $20
I was about to say this was announced a long time ago, but then I remembered it was Ubisoft that set up their own film studios.
To be honest though, I'm not suprised, they need to keep creative controll over their franchises, which is better than some other studio ruining things.
See, this is the kind of thing I've been saying Nintendo needs to be doing for years now. It needs to turn itself into a serious entertainment company, like Disney, making videogames, films, animations, comics, board games, toys, opening Nintendo Stores and Nintendo theme parks...all based around its characters, franchises, and intellectual properties.
That's how you grow Nintendo imo; not making crap like the Sleep Sensor. Just actual entertainment related stuff, of which there is a lot of related areas it could step into a lot more seriously than it is doing now.
Please no more Call of Duty. It's already everywhere.
Whats the difference between a CoD Movie and a game ?
And will the target audience boycott the movie because its missing multiplayer ?
A Skylanders Movie on the other hand was inevitable. And, well, its a coockie cutter animated kids film. There is nothing to write home about.
@Kirk And then you will have people throwing a tantrum about how Nintendo is milking their "ever same" IPs, characters and franchises. You should know the drill by now,
But yeah, thats definitly unused potential. Especially in regards to theme parks. A DK themed roller coaster with minecarts, Luigis mansion spookhouse, a FLUDD themed "Power Tower" (Rocket nozzle and all)
Basically Nintendo Land IRL.
@Kirk @Einherjar
Disney has this down, right? Star Wars is a well-known franchise but it still saturated every medium of entertainment there is generating excitement about the tentpole movie release.
Nintendo doesn't have to run the movie/tv studios itself, probably, but it does need a division to handle it and get the ball rolling much faster. The danger isn't just that games don't sell as well it's that IP like Mario and Zelda are mostly forgotten in a sea storm of content from the IP of competitors.
The good news is that Amiibo, and the Nintendo World Championship ideas are on the right track in this way. It suggests Nintendo sees the ongoing issue. That along with evidence that Nintendo was considering movies and TV in a concrete way. As with many Nintendo plans, faster would be better.
@Kirk
Films-Mario Bros was a big flop. Even after all these years, I don't think they're eager to do it. A well done Metroid movie by an excellent director would be amazing though and I think there were some Nintendo characters in Wreck It Ralph and definitely in Pixels. Plus VG movies are usually awful.
Cartoons-Super Mario Bros.Super Show, Adventures of Super Mario 3, Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda, Captain N: The Gamemaster, Kirby Right Back At Ya! These have been out for a long time.
Comics- There are several Legend of Zelda mangas. Idk if there other properties have any as I'm not big into comic books.
Board Games-They've done Monopoly and they have a game based on Tetris.
Books-They have books.
Toys-Jack Pacific's World of Nintendo, McDonald's toys, physical trophies with VG characters like Little Mac and Link, Figma toys, Nendoroids.
Various Merchandise-They've had this stuff forever. There's a cool article about it on i-mockery.
Theme Parks-Universal Studios is doing a Nintendo section. I don't think I want Nintendo doing their own theme park though. They're a videogame company. What the hell do they know about building roller coasters and other rides that won't kill people?
I think a Skylanders cartoon would be really fun! A CoD game would be an okay movie I guess.
@Freeon-Leon
XD
Wow, Spryo the Dragon sure looks different in that photo!
Seems like he got a make-over and they gave him some "attitude", sort of like Sonic back in the day.
shudders
I miss the old Spyro so much! Unfortunately, I don't think he's ever coming back, especially with Skylanders doing so well. I don't like either franchise, so I'm not excited for this at all. We'll just have to see how this goes...
A Skylanders cartoon is a no-brainer, and this explains why there hasn't been one yet. But a CoD movie? No thanks.
No more CoD! Please....
COD Zombies could make a interesting side movie...maybe...probably not.
Ugh...they're going to go overboard with COD with this aren't they?
Yay, a Spyro movie without any links to the character's original continuity! That's what I'm looking forward to! I would even have settled with that Legend Of Spyro movie that never took off, any Spyro incarnation would be better than this.
@IceClimbers
A franchise-milking company bought another franchise-milking company, then. What a surprise.
I'm surprised it's taken this long for Skylanders to start down the path to small or big screens. Call of Duty is an odd one - what would separate a Call of Duty movie from any other war or soldier movie, other than the name? Maybe a retelling of the Modern Warfare or Black Ops stories?
@Tempestryke They do most of that stuff half-*ssed and piecemeal. I'm talking about taking it seriously and going full-in, like Disney does.
@Einherjar Expanding the business into various other entertainment fields and using their characters/franchises isn't the same as milking characters in various games or whatever. No one really thinks of Disney as milking its properties. It just puts them everywhere you'd expect it to as a full-blown entertainment company, be it stores, theme parks, games, toys, movies, animations, whatever. I just want the same from Nintendo, and for it to be done properly--all in.
@Kirk I like all those cartoons. All Disney does these days is rely on Pixar, their original properties, any companies they gobble up and tween sitcoms. When was the last time you saw them do anything half decent on their own? Not since the Princess and the Frog anyways. Ol Walt must be rolling in his grave. I sure as hell don't want Nintendo or any entertainment company following in Disney's footsteps. Those Greedy little....
Burn Activision. Burn.
@Tempestryke Wreck it Ralf, Frozen, Paperman, and Disney Infinity, are a few pretty decent things Disney's done in the last few years, I'd say.
I'd one million times rather have Nintendo go down the Disney route than the route it's going down now, which is getting into kinda meh mobile Apps and stupid sleep sensors.
I can see how Skylanders could become an entertaining tv show.
Call of Duty I have no idea what they would want to do with. The stories and characters would not hold up for cinema or a drama series.
@MikeW wasn't for the better.
@CrimSkies97
Agreed...
I played Spyro 1 & 2 to death back in the PS1 days, but usually when publishers feel they have to give a character some "tude" its because the franchise is sort of losing its touch and they have no idea what to do with it...
@Tempestryke Wreck it Ralph, Frozen, and Big Hero 6 all say hello.
@SlayerG I specifically said Not Pixar.
@Tempestryke Those aren't Pixar.
I'll only watch Skylander Academy if it's around the same quality of the Sonic Boom cartoon and features Bowser and/or Donkey Kong, even if it's only one episode.
Nintendo should really start making cartoons of their ips. Mario should be like the Sonic Boom cartoon. I've never liked Sonic but the cartoon is comedy gold. The Legend of Zelda should become a dark fantasy like Over the Garden Wall. It's my favorite cartoon ever.
@amiiboacid Its cgi. Ergo its Pixar. I like Pixar and I like those movies, but if its not hand animated, it ain't Disney. The Disney channel is crap, Disney movies proper are non existent.
@Tempestryke Your statements are ridiculous. Just because it's CGI doesn't mean it's Pixar. The 3 movies I named are done by Walt Disney. Dreamworks has made a ton of CGI movies (most famously the Shrek trilogy), Fox has made a bunch as well (See the Ice Age series). Aside from that, what does it matter if Disney makes hand drawn movies or CGI movies. As long as they are animated and good, that is all that matters.
@SlayerG I was speaking of Pixar/Disney. NOT Dreamworks
@Tempestryke again, your statements make no sense. You said: "its CGI. Ergo it's Pixar." I named 3 Disney made CGI movies, which weren't made by Pixar, that were all excellent Disney animations to disprove your point. I only added the movies from DreamWorks and Fox to further illustrate that CGI isn't exclusive to Pixar as you say. I was giving further examples to demonstrate why it's ridiculous to make blanket statements as you did.
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