Raimi Puts World of Warcraft On Back Burner

[Tom Goldman]

Raimi Puts World of Warcraft On Back Burner

The World of Warcraft movie is going to have to wait until Sam Raimi is finished with a classic remake.

Sam Raimi might World of Warcraft [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101673-Sam-Raimi-Enthuses-About-World-of-Warcraft-Movie] movie, but not enough to make it his next project. The director, known for Evil Dead and Spider-Man, will be taking on a Wizard of Oz remake instead.

Disney was able to convince Raimi to make its Oz: The Great and Powerful his next film, which probably wasn't too hard. Oz is being set up as a 3D followup to the recent Alice in Wonderland remake, a film that grossed around $1 billion worldwide at the box office.

Not that World of Warcraft wouldn't make a ton of money too, but it could come down to World of Warcraft just needing more time. Nobody involved would want to see a bad movie version of the world's favorite MMORPG [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/104134-World-of-Warcraft-Tops-12-Million-Subscribers], and Raimi said in late June that the World of Warcraft script needed "a lot more work."

Or maybe Raimi is just caught up trying to find the perfect part for Bruce Campbell [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/93410-Blizzard-Ponders-Bruce-Campbells-Role-in-Warcraft-Film] in the land of Azeroth. It's not confirmed what this means for the eventual release of World of Warcraft in theaters, but it certainly appears to push the project significantly further away.

Source: Deadline [http://www.deadline.com/2010/10/disneys-oz-pic-gets-sam-raimi-to-commit-rabbit-hole-scribe-to-rewrite/]

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[Casual Shinji]

Well, thank God Tim Burton isn't making the new Wizard of Oz movie. I was already having nightmares of a Johnny Depp Scarecrow.

I'm sure Raimi will cast Bruce Campbell as the Wizard himself. Let's hope so.

 

[Buizel91]

Ooh fuck! My mum will buy this on DVD, and i'll have to put up with the fucking little retarded Munchkins and that horrible line in the song "Follow the yellow brick road"

Fan-Fucking-Tastic -_-'

Does it need remaking? Really!

 

[Buizel91]

Well, thank God Tim Burton isn't making the new Wizard of Oz movie. I was already having nightmares of a Johnny Depp Scarecrow.

I'm sure Raimi will cast Bruce Campbell as the Wizard himself. Let's hope so.

If Jhonny Depp was in it, i would find it a bit more amusing.

 

[Captain Pancake]

Seems to be taking a page from Blizzard's book amirite?

I kid, I kid, that was purely for comic banter.

 

[Zing]

Meh, Blizzard should get someone else. Raimi has some decent horror films under his belt, and Spiderman 2 was good. But tackling a massive fantasy film like Warcraft takes a lot of work. I'd rather see someone like Peter Jackson or something.

 

[Mechsoap]

hmmm...a movie done million times, or a massive multiplayer game with 11 million+ fans waiting? i cant see the logic.

 

[JaysonM]

pff, just get the guy who made the dragon ball z movie to make it... that movie was awesome.......

 

[theSovietConnection]

This makes this about the fifth film about The Wizard of Oz coming up I've heard of. Odd.

Well, thank God Tim Burton isn't making the new Wizard of Oz movie. I was already having nightmares of a Johnny Depp Scarecrow.

I'm sure Raimi will cast Bruce Campbell as the Wizard himself. Let's hope so.

Apparently Robert Downey Jr is being cast as the Wizard. Take from that what you will.

 

[LawlessSquirrel]

I still don't get why a 'World of Warcraft' movie is necessary other than for namesake, especially when there's a perfectly good, more coherent 'Warcraft' source instead. Warcraft built up interesting stories and lore, World of Warcraft reinterpreted and retconned it to support MMO quests instead, which are for the most part just fillers and basic backstory as to why you need to kill things. It just...doesn't make sense to me to go the route with weaker storytelling, unless it's only for the fans.

Eh, anyway, I'm not sure that Sam Raimi is the perfect guy for such a movie, if it's meant to be how I picture it. Not that he isn't a great director, it just seems a big shift in style. But then, I have no clue how they're planning on pulling this off, so they might always throw us a curve-ball with some sort of Evil-Dead of Azeroth styled plotline.

 

[GoGo_Boy]

@ Lawless

It's actually a Warcraft (3?) movie and not WoW. From what they announced so far it takes part during the Wc3 (Wc3:tft) campaign. Or well in that timeline or even before.

However most major sites of course call it the World of Warcraft movie because they haven't heard of Warcraft, Warcraft 2 and Warcraf 3... sadly

 

[Casual Shinji]

This makes this about the fifth film about The Wizard of Oz coming up I've heard of. Odd.

Well, thank God Tim Burton isn't making the new Wizard of Oz movie. I was already having nightmares of a Johnny Depp Scarecrow.

I'm sure Raimi will cast Bruce Campbell as the Wizard himself. Let's hope so.

Apparently Robert Downey Jr is being cast as the Wizard. Take from that what you will.

Well, let's hope the world hasn't already been overly saturated with Robert Downey Jr's presence on screen by the time this new Oz comes out.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Maybe this will give Blizzard the time it needs to come to its senses, drop this whole "live-action" angle it seems to want and get to producing a feature-length CGI movie with the quality it's shown in its trailers and cutscenes. People would RISE FROM THE DEAD to see that.

 

[maddog015]

I thought this movie was about how the Wizard came into Oz. So, its not really a remake. More of a prequel.

 

[Jaebird]

While I'm more excited that there will be a new Oz film, I feel very fearful for the end-result after reading this:

Oz is being set up as a 3D followup to the recent Alice in Wonderland remake...

Alice in Narnia was uninspired and boring. Please don't f*ck up this important part of childhood, Raimi. I'm sorry if I'm dipping into hyperbole here, but Oz is as important to me as any other piece of entertainment that I can remember from my past.

 

[Ghengis John]

I can already see it now, Bruce Cambell is the Tin Man. "It's a trick... Get an Axe."