Warcraft: The Movie

Sam Rami had been signed up to direct this, with the company behind Batman and 12 Monkeys producing. Full story here.

This is good news imo, as it looks like Blizzard are taking a lot of care to ensure that this is done right. Rami has an excellent track record (Spiderman 3 shouldn't count), and with him at the helm this could end up being very enjoyable.

LZ5by5 wrote: »

Is there an actual storyline with central characters in World of Warcraft?

Well the warcraft series does have a series of central characters and a storyline. World of Warcraft takes place a number of years after the events of the third game (+add on pack) and alot of the mmo's plot and characters are taken from there. But yes like oblivion you create your own character that does quests etc for these characters.

On the movie it can go one of two ways for it to be good adaptation.

Either they opt for a warcraft movie where it will adapt the prior games (most likely warcraft 3) and thus get the whole epic battles etc and strong popular characters from the franchise, it appeal to wow players while at the same time not alienate the few non wow people remaining because it starts at the beginning essentially.


Or they go for a world of warcraft adventure film. This would give the filmmakers alot of freedom, opting for a sort of conan the barbarian style adventure film within the wow universe. Again fans are pleased as nods and locations directly from the game (and maybe a quest or two) are taken directly from favourite dungeons. While non wow people will have a chunk of stuff go over their heads it wont be any worse then the millions of marvel nods in the comic book films.


The bad thing for them to do is to try and do some epic war scenario within the wow timeframe cause that'll just piss off fans if they start getting big things wrong or changing them to suit the films plot etc Also it goes against the spirit of wow. Warcraft was all about the big armies etc but WoW focused on the adventurers and heroes.

On a side note my experiance of wow was two brief attempts where I got my undead warlock to level 26 and gave up.

I watch with interest though to see how blizzard sit with the film industry after Bungie's spectaculer step back with Halo.


EDIT: Sam Raimi signed on would work for a world of warcraft adventure film...but the films title is simply warcraft that makes me think they are going to adapt warcraft 3.

Karl Hungus wrote: »

You know Uwe Boll did actually approach Blizzard so that he could make a Warcraft film?

Blizzards response was brilliant, if what Boll claims they said is true: “We will not sell the movie rights, not to you…. especially not to you.”

special guest appearance by Leroy Jenkins

pixelburp wrote: »

I would presume then that his sci-fi project 'Mute' is shelved then; that' a shame as it sounded like an interesting concept. Guess money talks in this instance.

Speaking as a gamer, adaptations of games have consistently been a cinematic graveyard, and often it comes down to the fact that what makes games appealing is the interactive experience, not the mythos. Strip away the gamer from Warcraft and what's left is a pretty generic, over-earnest fantasy tale.

I still hold out hope Bioshock will get made as the epic, dystopian parable - in the mould of films like Brazil - it could be.

I can understand if doing this as a payday gives him leverage to get funding for a passion project, a lot of directors and actors do the same, whats that line Ari had in Entourage "you do one for them, then one for you"

Leaked movie trailer watch before it's pulled
http://www.destructoid.com/watch-the-leaked-warcraft-movie-trailer-before-it-s-pulled-296045.phtml?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

The film appears to use a lot of CGI and greenscreens, which potentially is fair enough considering the world we are talking about, but still will be a little disappointing no doubt.

But as long as the script and story are strong, it will be a hit. The Warcraft universe is incredibly strong and has great characters and stories.

Although typically when I get the "how can they **** this up" they typically go and **** it up

Gbear wrote: »

Interview with Duncan Jones:

Obviously he's not going to say it's a big pile of ****, but he seemed really into the whole thing.

Caring is half the battle with these things.

Most video game films have felt like something completely cynical from top to bottom, made as a sop to nerds.

Now that the nerds have grown up, hopefully we can get something that's made with more passion and more competence.

He sold me on being one step ahead of most previous films based on games purely by his first comment on the nature of sides in warcraft being drawn from how the games allowed you to play both sides.


Which goes a big way to explaining why most video game movies outright suck. They mostly take the storyline from the game but ignore the experiences of the player. of course most games have crappy stories when you remove the players interactions, filmmakers have never tried to adapt gameplay experiences. The closest I've seen is the first half of the first silent hill film.

They keep trying to take the story of the game and fit in a movie mold, when in reality they should cut the game's story apart and take only the bits that work and take just as much from player's experiences to flesh it out.

Consider the resident evil movies (pre Resident Evil 4) they told the correct stories, but they did it with kung fu kicks to dogs and other ridiculous set ups and never once tried to translate the sense of claustrophobia or pressure a player had in resident evil 1 or 2 in exploring the mansion or preserving ammo. But its ok because they showed the tiger statue or the umbrella train...bollocks.


So I was dissapointed with the leaked footage, but that interview restores some confidence