Warcraft Movie Studio Is Still Trying To Figure It Out

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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Warcraft Movie Studio Is Still Trying To Figure It Out


The head of Legendary Studios says assuming that gamers are a built-in audience for game-based films "is an incredibly poor way to make a movie."

This Warcraft movie business has been dragging on for a long time, hasn't it? But the bright side to all the waiting, at least to hear Legendary Pictures boss Thomas Tull tell it, is that by taking its time, the studio is less likely to make a mess of it. Tull acknowledged that the studio is still trying to figure out how to best turn Warcraft the game into Warcraft the movie but said he thinks the ideal approach is to base it on the game world, rather than the game itself.

"It's the incredible story, the war, and these races, and everything these guys at Blizzard have come up with. They have 100 books, and just this incredibly rich world that they've created," he said. And while he acknowledged that they still "don't know how to make a movie out of Warcraft," having Duncan Jones aboard as director is a big plus in getting it figured out.

"We've taken our time [developing this property], because we absolutely don't want to screw it up. And I think we're getting close to a place where we're ready to go. And when the script is finished, and when we feel like, 'Forget whether or not there's a built-in audience. Does this stand on its own, and is it great?' then we'll start filming. We're not quite there yet, but we're under suspicion of going there," he said. "And Duncan is one of those directors that you just [think], 'This guy gets it.'"

Tull didn't commit to the 2015 release date that was kicked around in January when Jones came aboard [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121803-Legendary-Pictures-Taps-Source-Code-Director-for-Warcraft-Movie], but he did imply that it will probably be somewhere in that neighborhood. "The next two years are going to be pretty exciting, I think," he said.

Source: Slashfilm [http://www.slashfilm.com/thomas-tull-on-the-challenge-of-making-a-good-video-game-movie-out-of-world-of-warcraft/]


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Exterminas

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Sep 22, 2009
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By now they have wasted so much time on this project that WoW's reputation and importance has declined enough to make the Franchise-Name a burden. I bet they would make more money marketing it as a generic Fantasy-Movie, without the Warcraft-Tag attached. Really, who wants to be the guy asking people to go see the Warcraft-Movie with Wow's dubious reputation as a Killer of Real Life among non-gamers?

I am not saying that there is any truth in that, but that seems to be how the mainstream views WoW.
 

Shilefin

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Aug 18, 2011
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[...]he thinks the ideal approach is to base it on the game world, rather than the game itself.
Good to see this simple rule is finally being acknowledged. There's almost no way to form the main plot of a game into a movie without sacrificing plot points and at least somewhat eviscerating(If not changing the plot entirely to fit the movie)the source material(although if an Uncharted movie is in the works, this can be easily avoided by casting Nolan North as Nathan Drake, but I digress).
 

Mahoshonen

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Exterminas said:
By now they have wasted so much time on this project that WoW's reputation and importance has declined enough to make the Franchise-Name a burden. I bet they would make more money marketing it as a generic Fantasy-Movie, without the Warcraft-Tag attached. Really, who wants to be the guy asking people to go see the Warcraft-Movie with Wow's dubious reputation as a Killer of Real Life among non-gamers?

I am not saying that there is any truth in that, but that seems to be how the mainstream views WoW.
I have to really disaggree with you. WoW's star may be fading, and there's no going back to its heyday, but it's got a lng way to go before it's franchise becomes a liability.
 

Maxtro

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Why don't they just adapt the story from one of the books? I'd love to see a movie based on 'Day of the Dragon.'
 

sirjeffofshort

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I remember a few years back, a friend of mine was very active on the forums for an upcoming live action adaptation of the Transformers franchise. "Why are you even bothering?" I constantly asked. "The movie is most likely going to be a terribly adapted cash grab."

"No!" he objected, "This is different, we are all fans, and the producer has said he genuinely wants our input, he wants to get it right!" So he spent many, many hours over more than a year monitoring and commenting on every aspect of this message board. He was one of the top contributors and was genuinely SO excited for the movie to come out because everything he had read on the boards, and all of the positive feedback he had seen by the producers of the film made him feel that there wasn't a way this movie could get screwed up. This was a movie by the fans and for the fans. He was going to get the true Transformers adaption he deserved...

I'll leave you to guess the ending to that story. True story though.

Lesson learned: Promises of "We're doing it right," are constantly made in Hollywood, and even if the initial intention is in the right place, so many people (especially the people with the money) end up getting their hands in the pot that they are as empty and meaningless as any you'll ever see in politics. In my experience, the people in charge of the creative aspects have very little control in the end product.
 

Generalsexbad

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Exterminas said:
By now they have wasted so much time on this project that WoW's reputation and importance has declined enough to make the Franchise-Name a burden. I bet they would make more money marketing it as a generic Fantasy-Movie, without the Warcraft-Tag attached. Really, who wants to be the guy asking people to go see the Warcraft-Movie with Wow's dubious reputation as a Killer of Real Life among non-gamers?

I am not saying that there is any truth in that, but that seems to be how the mainstream views WoW.

The public views bronys as a bunch of geekos yet they still made a My Little Pony film. The reason they'll make a WoW movie is because it has a built in audience. That's why most movies that are being made these days are either remakes, sequels, or based off popular novels because they know fans will see the film. They don't care about non-gamers, just like they don't care about people who didn't see the first film who probably won't see a sequel either. If it can turn a profit off the fan base (which a WoW film without a doubt will even if it sucks huge cock) why would they care?
 

008Zulu_v1legacy

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Sep 6, 2009
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Wait, World of Warcraft has a story now? I remember the standalone games having one, but the MMO? The devs seem to retcon major plot points every couple of months.