Warcraft Movie to be Directed by...

[MC]

None other than Sam Raimi:

Update: Blizzard has confirmed that Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Spider-Man, Drag Me To Hell) will indeed direct the impending Warcraft film.

"Raimi has, in the course of his career, clearly demonstrated a genius for developing and adapting existing fictional universes for mainstream audiences while staying true to the spirit of the original content," Blizzard stated in a press release.

"At its core, Warcraft is a fantastic, action-packed story," Raimi added. "I am thrilled to work with such a dynamite production team to bring this project to the big screen."

The Dark Knight and 12 Monkeys producer Charles Roven has signed on to produce the film alongside his production partner Alex Gartner, Legendary CEO Thomas Tull, Legendary COO Jon Jashni, Sam Raimi and Raimi's producing partner Joshua Donen. Another one of Raimi's partners, Robert Tapert, will serve as executive producer with Blizzard's creative development VP Chris Metzen acting as co-producer.

"From our first conversation with Sam, we could tell he was the perfect choice," noted Blizzard COO Paul Sams. "Sam knows how to simultaneously satisfy the enthusiasts and the mainstream audience that might be experiencing that content for the first time. We're looking forward to working with him to achieve that here."

The company added that more details, such as casting and a release target, will arrive "as development progresses," with the press release promising that the movie "will bring the forces of the Horde and the Alliance to life in epic live-action film."

Original: Legendary filmmaker Sam Raimi is to direct Blizzard's upcoming live-action Warcraft film, assuming Ain't It Cool News is to believed.

Official word on the matter is expected either this week or next, according to the respected site.

Little has been said of the game-turned-film since Blizzard and Legendary Pictures discussed openly discussed the movie in 2007. Back then, the duo was shooting for a 2009 release, and provided pre-production art (above) of the elven home of Teldrassil.

"The story takes place about a year before WoW begins," Blizzard creative director Chris Metzen explained at the time. "You're likely to see a lot of races you've played, the lands you know. The story really is a number of main plot points kind of rolled into a really strong two, two and a half hour tale...thematically it's about cultures and conflict."

While Blizzard has really said nothing more of the film since then, at least one solid tidbit has emerged: word that oft-chastised director Uwe Boll will not be involved, at all.

Source: http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/59633

 

[Eacos]

IMO Starcraft would make a far better movie. Warcraft just feels so.. LOTR.

Starcraft is darker. It has war, politics, lasers and aliens.

 

[sub]

IMO Starcraft would make a far better movie. Warcraft just feels so.. LOTR.

Starcraft is darker. It has war, politics, lasers and aliens.

Couldn't agree more. Warcraft to me is so generic it hurts.

 

[Deathshot]

Well, If they do it I hope it turns out to be as good as Tales of the Past.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHSAAm_0uK0[/ame]

 

[Sicron]

I'll quote Yathzee from Zero Punctutation on this one:

"My point is, asking a film-maker to make a game (or vice-versa) is like asking a sausage-maker to suck of a pig. You can sort of see the logical connection there, but it's a completely different skill set and the effort will just leave a bad taste in someones mouth."

That's all I have to say about this.

 

[Deman]

Couldn't agree more. Warcraft to me is so generic it hurts.

Indeed. It's a cool universe, and it's awesome that the games have so much lore to them, but the lore itself is very bland and is pretty much just paraphrased from other high fantasy sources. While I also think that Starcraft would make a much more awesome movie, you can understand why they're doing it with Warcraft when you take WoW into consideration. Plus people would just draw parallels between Starcraft and Aliens given the biology of the zerg. Protoss add something cool.

Either way, the fact that Warcraft "borrows" so much from other high fantasy, might make it a better box office hit. People are familiar with Orcs and Elves to begin with.

 

[Grega]

Indeed. It's a cool universe, and it's awesome that the games have so much lore to them, but the lore itself is very bland and is pretty much just paraphrased from other high fantasy sources. While I also think that Starcraft would make a much more awesome movie, you can understand why they're doing it with Warcraft when you take WoW into consideration. Plus people would just draw parallels between Starcraft and Aliens given the biology of the zerg. Protoss add something cool.

Either way, the fact that Warcraft "borrows" so much from other high fantasy, might make it a better box office hit. People are familiar with Orcs and Elves to begin with.

I see not why. They are both just copies of Warhammer. Though Starcraft more thatn Warcraft. But yea make a movie on Warhammer. I mean theres books about that XD

 

[Eacos]

I see not why. They are both just copies of Warhammer. Though Starcraft more thatn Warcraft. But yea make a movie on Warhammer. I mean theres books about that XD

As there is Starcraft novels as well.

 

[Skiwan]

There's books of Warcraft too, whole ****ing series.

Warcraft lifts material from all areas of "fantasy" literature, its pretty much a patchwork quilt made out of stories from inspirations, Lotr and warhammer to name a few.

 

[Barney]

A Warhammer/40k movie would be so much better. I would love to see some CG Necrons!

 

[Grega]

As there is Starcraft novels as well.

Well from waht i know. Blizzard was supposed to make a Warhammer computer game. But then the deal kinda fell out, but the design was allready in progress. That then got finished and named Starcraft.

Hence the races are so similar. The starcraft space marines are based on the Warhammer space marines, the Protoss are based on the Eldar and the Zerglings are based on the alien like creatures that made their apearance in Warhammer 2.

Orcourse there is a whole bunch of other Warhammer races. Like the Orcs, Elves (Dark Elves, High Elves and Wood Elves that is), Dwarfs and so on. That part kinda served as the background for Warcraft races.

So yea a Warhammer movie would defenitly be more sufficient than either Starcraft or Warclraft since both of those are just Warhammer spinoffs ^^

 

[Dokutayuu]

I personally won't be seeing this film, I find Warcraft really dull regardless of its medium. As said before, despite being familar it is just far too generic.

There's always the trend of most films based on games being absolute failures too.

 

[Boogyman93]

Ok, Blizzard has a huge budget so the special effects clearly won't be a problem and all of the World of Warcraft movies are outstanding, not to mention the intro movies. But when it comes to make a actual 2 - 3 hour long movie based on a game or cartoon it will be pretty hard to get everything right. I rely hope it won't be as fail as Dragonball Evolution was.

 

[Sicron]

I do have to say though, I love Blizzard:

Blizzard Rejects Uwe Boll's World of Warcraft Movie; Boll Explains Importance of Ignoring Game Fans

by Chris Faylor Apr 21, 2008 10:25am CST tags:



Proving itself even more worthy of adoration, developer Blizzard has rejected an offer that would have seen reviled director Uwe Boll working on a World of Warcraft film. "I got in contact with Paul Sams of Blizzard [about a World of Warcraft film] and he said, 'We will not sell the movie rights, not to you...especially not to you,'" Boll informed MTV News.

"Because it's such a big online game success, maybe a bad movie would destroy that ongoing income."

The director of such game-to-film adaptations as Far Cry, BloodRayne, Alone in the Dark, Postal, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale and House of the Dead also spoke on the importance of ignoring a game's core fanbase.

"To be honest, the real gamers are the typical download guys, right?" Boll reasoned. "They don't pay anything for movies, because they illegally download the movies. So why [should I] please these guys? I need the normal audience."

Last August, Blizzard confirmed it would thankfully be taking the reigns of the Warcraft movie rights, with the studio-endorsed film, produced in conjunction with Legendary Pictures, currently slated for a vague 2009 release.

Hahaha, "Especially not to you".

 

[Grega]

Bolls point is void. His films suck ass >.>

 

[Brosiris]

Bolls point is void. His films suck ass >.>

That's purely a fact and definitely not opinion based.

 

[Dokutayuu]

That's purely a fact and definitely not opinion based.

I've looked up average ratings and many scored less than 10% on their reviews. I did see a 4.9/10 but that was the highest one.

How did he mess up House of the Dead though. The first two games had plots better than the film!

 

[J-Dude]

Boll is the biggest hack in Hollywood and he ought to be blacklisted from the industry. I remember when "In the Name of the King" was in our theater. I'd never seen such tripe, one of the worst films I'd ever set eyes on, and the worst of it was it had A list actors playing several roles:

Jason Statham, playing the lead and scarcely using his own charisma to BEGIN balancing the pillar of wafers that was his character.

Ron Perlman in the worst roll I've ever seen him in as some tag-along side-character to Statham, forced to say some of the most cringe-worthy dialogue I've ever heard. Also really out of place in this kingdom of people who speak with British accents.

John Rhys-Davies cast into some forgettable roll as a wizard for the King or something.

Matthew Lillard (yes, Shaggy from Scooby Doo) in one of the most laughable rolls ever, TRYING to fake a British accent while playing the King's (Burt Reynold's) jealous (and obnoxious) nephew who wants to usurp him.

And finally, Ray Liotta, the last and worst in the American accented characters, portrayed as the villain, some kind of evil sorcerer with the presence of a bar of soap. Just think about it, Ray Liotta in a roll as the villain of a film set in medieval times...

There's nothing more to say about Boll, he's a talentless fool.

 

[Brosiris]

I don't like him either, and I never said I did. I just find it funny how a multi million dollar movie director, and famous might I add, is 'terrible'.

If I made millions directing movies that you all thought were bad, I honestly wouldn't care. I'd be rich.

 

[The Deco]

So Uwe Boll should make a Chrono Trigger movie?