Sam Raimi to Direct World of Warcraft Movie
Once the Comic Con in San Diego gets rolling this weekend, I’m guessing there will be at least a few big announcements to be made, but even before the Con actually starts we’ve already got a pretty huge one to report: Sam Raimi has signed on to direct a World of Warcraft movie. It will be a live-action film, co-financed by Legendary Pictures and Warner Brothers, and overseen by The Dark Knight producer Charles Roven. Game developer Blizzard is also expected to have a fair amount of creative input.
There hadn’t really been much movement on the WoW movie since its initial announcement back in 2006. At one point Spielberg was rumoured to be in talks for the film, but that turned out to be completely bogus. The interesting thing with Sam Raimi is that not only does he have a huge following thanks to the Spider-Man and Evil Dead films, but he also has a background in fantasy having produced both Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. He was also supposedly close to directing The Hobbit at one point. Either way it should be pretty interesting to see what he can do with a decent budget behind him. No word yet on who is writing the script though. What do you think about this announcement? Could World of Warcraft actually turn out to be a decent video game movie?
Comments (25)
Wow… This is just gonna HAVE to be huge. Last experience I had with Warcraft was the third game – RTS, not MMORPG, so I’m not that up to date with the lore as I never got into WoW. But it’s a rich universe with a MASSIVE following, so it’ll no doubt be a commercial success even if the script is totally shit. Sam Raimi’s a force to be reckoned with though (though Spidey 3 was abysmal), so I reckon this is one to look out for.
Posted by EyeGod on July 22nd, 2009It better not be named ‘World of Warcraft’. It will be interesting to see how the result measures up against something like LOTR.
Posted by Booma on July 22nd, 2009Actually according to the article it’s just going to be called “Warcraft”.
Posted by Sean on July 22nd, 2009damn! there’s no stopping this guy! this will be HUGE! and i like “Warcraft” as a title better.
Posted by modesilver on July 22nd, 2009great. now this kids that play this game 12 hours a day can take a 2.5 hour break.
Posted by jason smart on July 22nd, 2009I hope Hollywood doesn’t screw this up like they did Dungeons & Dragons!
Posted by Chris on July 22nd, 2009hahaha @ jason smart
Posted by Mike on July 22nd, 2009Not a fan of Word of Warcraft, but I like Blizzards other games.
Also not to into Hercules and Xena, but a fan of Raimi’s other work.
I’m unsure as to if I’ll like this or not, but I will probably end up seeing it.
Posted by Nick D on July 22nd, 2009How can this movie be based on World of Warcraft, when WoW is based on the story of Warcraft? Whatever
Btw. How do I register here, and how do i get pictures with my name?
Posted by cumonface on July 22nd, 2009Mr. cumonface:
No one registers with Filmjunk, except Henrik because the law requires him to do so twice a year.
Filmjunk uses gravatars as their avatar system. You can sign up for this here:
http://en.gravatar.com/
I would advise, however, that you not associate your gravatar with your name for obvious reasons.
Posted by Dave on July 22nd, 2009Glad it will be just Warcraft. Warcraft 2 is my favourite game ever so hope they wont fuck this up.
Posted by Raph on July 22nd, 2009Here is hoping that Raimi has a lot control on the project. Not that it can guarantee a sucessful videogame-to-film adaptation, but I’d like to know that I’m seeing the Warcraft universe through the eyes of Raimi.
In recent gaming news, all the WoW servers is China have been down for about a month now which contain 5million of the 11million subscribers to WoW. They say that it will continue to be down and no signs of them coming back up anytime soon.
Posted by Pr1mal on July 22nd, 2009Lol.
is cumonface also cumonass?
Posted by Ryan M. on July 22nd, 2009The only time I had experience with WOW was while watching one friend slowly degenerating into a gamer-zombie, so understandably I´m not a big fan of this.
But I´m sure Raimi is able to make a nice looking movie from the source-material – the only problem will be to get the target audience away from their screens long enough to get their asses to the theatre.
Just imagine the opening day with all these white skinned fat guys leaving the basement of their parents house for the first time in years – romeroesque.
Posted by theDia on July 23rd, 2009With Raimi and a decent budget, there’s still some hope for it. Blizzard are known for being extreme perfectionists with their games and franchises. This isn’t some D-grade studio selling their film rights for a quick buck to the next Uwe Boll, Blizz pulls in billions of dollars so they’d probably be allowed a lot of creative input to make a great movie.
Posted by stevie_boy on July 23rd, 2009“Blizz pulls in billions of dollars so they’d probably be allowed a lot of creative input to make a great movie.”
And with the way they love to ret-con their own shit, I hope they stay as far away from this project as possible. If they’ve got their hands all over it will be just like Avi Arad and Marvel on Spider-man 3. If Raimi wants to direct this movie, let him make what he wants to make. That’s why you hire someone like him, because he can turn in a decent product. You start fucking with that formula and you get fanboys bitching about jazz dancing and Kirsten Dunst.
Posted by Dave on July 23rd, 2009Is it going to be animated or live action? I’d love to see something in the style of the opening “movies” they have for the WoW games.
Posted by Falsk on July 23rd, 2009I agree, I’d love to see a feature-length animated movie from Blizzard, but this is going to be live-action.
Posted by Sean on July 23rd, 2009Honestly, I’d rather see a Starcraft movie but that’s mainly because I burned out on everything Warcraft related.
Posted by Dave on July 23rd, 2009Live action? BALLS.
What a missed opportunity…
Posted by Falsk on July 23rd, 2009Ok so i signed up on gravatar. Now what do i do? Cause i realized many of the names i want is taken there, something that shoulds be a problem her. How do i get my picture up?
Posted by Cumonface on July 23rd, 2009Um, well, the picture is tied to your e-mail address, not the name you enter into the comment form. This way your Gravatar is the same on all websites that use the service. You need to upload a photo to Gravatar’s site for it to start showing up on here. Also, make sure the e-mail address you enter into the comment box is the same one you entered for your Gravatar account.
Now if you’ll excuse, I need to go demand a check from Gravatar.
Posted by Dave on July 23rd, 2009i would much rather see warcraft animated than live-action because the cinematics for the game were animated and those looked really good. but oh well i cant do anything about it.
Posted by Shea on July 23rd, 2009I’m still in a bit of shock that they are doing this. First question is, as always – why? It’s a game. Sure, they could go into the back stories to flush out the world but it’s two warring factions. They are most certainly to showcase it from the side of alliance (/snore) and diss the horde (boo!). As someone whose been playing since release and a film fan I wish I was excited but in all honestly – I’m not.
Posted by Shannon the Movie Moxie on July 24th, 2009Sam Raimi seems like a good choice, he’s truly awesome as film director. I’m actually excited about this. The “World of Warcraft” is expected to be a box office success starting with a huge following of millions of fans of the video game. This is good news for all WOW players out there. I am really looking forward on this movie.
Posted by eq plat on July 24th, 2009Leave a Reply