More Details on The Warcraft Movie

Gamespot had a talk with Paul Sams, Blizzard COO, and dug up some additional details on the Warcraft film. From the article: "We're not trying to take what we've done and...try to make a literal translation to the big screen. What we want to do is to make a great movie that happens to be set in a video game universe. That's a differentiator, and a key differentiator. A lot of it comes down to picking the right people. A lot of the other video game movies that have come out before this haven't had the budgets, the right people, and haven't had the right mindset. We and Legendary want to make a great film, an event picture, big-budget picture, that is a great stand-alone, fantasy-based movie that is good for you regardless of whether you're familiar with the Warcraft universe."

Re:Already covered.

[Supurcell]

Except Tron was a movie first and a video game later. It did not have to live up to anybody's expectations. It was a blank slate. Millions of people have played the Warcraft Series and many of them have something different that they really love, that probably wont be captured in the live-action movie version.

The style of Warcraft, and all other Blizzard games, is a big thing for me. The opening cinematic for World of Warcraft is damn near to photo-realistic and still captures their over-the-top style. I'm sure that there will be plenty of CGI orcs, trolls, etc. in the movie, so why not go all out and really wow us by giving the fans what we've wanted for years?

I hope they still make a great movie despite their choices, and that this wont just be a quick cash-in.

Egad, man...

[The-Bus]

"A lot of the other video game movies that have come out before this haven't had the budgets..."

(Note: All numbers adjusted for inflation).

Ahh, yes, lack of money. Let's look at some video game movie budgets. Resident Evil: Apocalypse was $44MM. The recent Silent Hill was $50MM. The charming Super Mario Bros. was about $57MM. Oh, and we all liked that Doom movie: it cost $70MM. And who could forget Tomb Raider at a whopping $87MM.

Now, I've sat through most of these movies. At no point did I look into the screen and say... "Wow, if they only had more money, this would've been so much better."

 

Step One

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't base the movie on the game. If you do, you're already sunk because then the whole driving force becomes making the movie into a random smorgasboard of "bits" (gotta have character types X Y and Z, scenes with terrain types P D and Q, etc.) No. If you want to try for a serious fantasy movie you have to treat the game as something reflecting a 'reality' in game terms. You then base your movie on that imaginary universe. Make a movie that reflects that same reality in movie terms. Then you at least have a chance. You need a strongly imagined universe for this to work, but it just might work here. The warcraft background is reasonably well detailed. It's still one hell of a "might" though. I wish them luck.

Re:Already covered.

[Ohreally_factor]

I hope they still make a great movie despite their choices, and that this wont just be a quick cash-in.

If wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak.

Seriously, how can this be anything other than an attempt to cash in on the game?

Re:That is awesome...

[MMaestro]

Actually the Warcraft series has one of the most confusing, contradictory and undefined storylines in recent video gaming history. The change from Warcraft 2 to 3 alone added FOUR different sides (the Tauren, the Night Elves, the Naga and the Infernal). World of Warcraft added three more (Dwarves, Gnomes and Trolls) to the fray.

Warcraft 1 + 2 had a barebones backstory involving the Dark Portal and an Orc invasion. Then Warcraft 3 sudden talks about the Undead and a conspiracy to conquer the world, the Night Elves (and an entire continent being 'discovered'), the Tauren (who saw this coming), the Naga (wow, could they add anything more unexpected?), alien invaders from outer space (ok, I guess they can), the Orcs really being under the control of the alien invaders (now they're stretching it), Dwarves and Gnomes becoming their own unique playable races, Ogres breaking away from the Orcs, etc etc etc.

Seriously, if you step back and think about it Blizzard OVEREXTENDED themselves when it came to the storyline in Warcraft 3. World of Warcraft just makes things worse since it is considered to be a sequel of the Warcraft storyline the PvP/PvE server differences are contradictory. Technically theres a truce but on PvP servers its open war, on PvE servers its virtually a peace treaty and in Battlegrounds its a war zone. Not to mention Quest storylines that involve biological warfare, chemical warfare, kidnappings/rescue missions, invasions and assassinations on both sides.

(Not to mention the Blood Elves, the Draenei or the Pandarians, two of which are becoming new races in World of Warcraft so you can bump that number up to five.)

Re:Step One

[patio11]

I love WoW, have wasted an unhealthy amount of my life in it, and think the "lore" (backstory) sucks. Its like every fantasy universe you've ever heard of, a pastiche of cliches which have been done better elsewhere (Quick sampling: missing king, corrupt advisor perverting kingdom to her own ends, about nobody with a personality which is more than a character archetype, etc etc. ). The thing that makes Warcraft and WoW exceptional is the gameplay set in that comfortably familiar fantasy universe. I don't see that translating well to the video screen: those of us who played it might get a kick out of "Hey, I saved that guy's farm once!" but everyone else will be like "Hmm, horde of undead beasties summoned up, threatening whole world, nations of world too busy with petty infighting to see the true threat... where have I heard this story before..."