Screenwriter Talks About Original Vision for WoW Movie

[Nurb]

Newsflash: It doesn't matter, it'll be a terrible movie no matter what. But it will still make money anyway, which is the sad part. It'll end up like Mortal Kombat.

 

[DaxStrife]

Wow, haven't seen anything from Gary Whitta since he stopped writing for PC Gamer some years back. Would love to see what he had drafted.

 

[RebelRising]

I wait tentatively to see how that pans out; I trust that Sam Raimi at least won't cock it up completely.

 

[darksakul]

I hope this crap gets canned the same way a Peter Jackson movie on Halo got canned.

Peter Jackson and a first time director Neill Blomkamp was supposed to make a Halo movie. the plans fell though, and instead adapted Alive in Joburg, a 2005 short film directed by Blomkamp into the Movie District 9.

I am hoping the same thing happens to Rami, and instead Sam Rami directs a much, much better film.

Everyone knows movies based on Video Games suck, or do I have to remind people about the following MOVIES, Super Mario Bros, Double Dragon, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat (Both Films), Doom, Blood Rayne, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, King of Fighters and the Tekken Movie.

All what about Resident Evil and Tomb Raider? Okay those where not half bad as movies, but as movies go they are sub-par. Also I left out all the Poke-mon films because they were animated, which is different from a live action adaption, and its Poke-mon.

I am personally skipping seeing the World of Warcraft movie (more like warcrap, am I right?

 

[toapat]

actually WoW isnt in refference to the game, its a refferences to the maps, locations, and charicters in the game, along with the charicters from the storyline. the name is more appropriet as it is not actually a Warcraft game as everyone except Trollbane, Khadgar, and Graymane from the original games are still alive or involved.

Your grammar is making me cry inside, but did I hear you say that Khadgar isn't in WoW or am I misunderstanding?

wow, i really fucked that up.

what i mean is of the original characters from Warcraft, only 6 are alive, and one is a ghost who has only one piece left to be involved in, and he wont even make an appearance.
Danath Trollbane, Grenn Graymane, and Khadgar are the last 3 mortal charicters left still involved, although Garona could pop up at any time, and likely will have to in Cataclysm, while the last 3 Immortals are Yersa, Alexstraza, and Nozdormu, as Deathwing is going to die in a year and a half

 

[Velocirapture07]

Just wondering....How the heck do you make a movie out of an mmorgp???

 

[Velocirapture07]

This will go one of two ways.

1. It will be overly simplified and be a new Dungeons and Dragons movie (They should just cast Jeremy Irons now and save the trouble later)
2. It will succumb to Raimi's "Spider-Man 3" syndrome where there are too many characters and plot threads, and no real conclusion as a result.

Either way, aren't there better games to make a movie out of? I mean a movie out of an RPG just seems counterproductive.

Haha. Those movies are classic! You've gotta admit Jeremy Irons is a beast.

 

[Pimppeter2]

I'm sure it'll be terrible either way

 

[MrSnugglesworth]

A movie.
Out of Warcraft.
*facedesk*

this, the movie can not be good. unless Blizzard approves, it will suck

At least they didn't hire Uwe Boll, right? Right?

DON'T YOU SPEAK HIS VILE NAME HERE, IN A PLACE OF HOPEFUL VIDEOGAME MOVIE.



BEGONE, YE WHO SPEAKS THE NAME OF THE BOLL!

 

[Chipperz]

Just wondering....How the heck do you make a movie out of an mmorgp???

You hit your thirteenth birthday, and realise that World of Warcraft is part of the utterly spectacular Warcraft universe.

Sam Raimi's a good director, I heard a rumour somewhere thet they were getting the guy who wrote the script for Saving Private Ryan, which was a good film. Warcraft has a lot of great backstory and is designed around being a cinematic experience. I can't wait, and it's going to be awesome.

(also, all I got from this other guy was "I filled my script with blatant fanservice for the entire thing! There's one bit where Arthas teams up with Malfurion and Tyrande to fight Gul'dan and Illidan! In Icecrown! And everything's on fire! Look at how many references I can fit into one scene!")

 

[Zing]

It's a "Warcraft" movie not a "WoW" movie. I think we should make this clear, I'm kind of anal about it.

 

[Tron-tonian]

I'll remain hopeful but skeptical - just like I did for the D&D movie. All that source material, all the fine stories that had already been told...and they delivered a turd sandwich.

 

[MmmFiber]

Hey this is no spider man you cant pick up 30 comic books and feel the whole world....has he ever played any of the games that Sami guy? :O
I hope blizz knows what they are doing with this cuz if they screw the movie there will be mils of pissed off fans. and then mils of pissed of normal ppl who just went to the cinema cuz of the shiny trailer (oh there will be an uber shiny trailer for sure).

Yeah, the trailer will probably blow our collective freaking minds.

And yeah, hopefully he will be able to actually get the feel of warcraft. And wow, too. Because, most people will assume it's based completely off of wow. Warcraft 1-3 just aren't as recognizable.

Any way you slice it, I'll still go see it IF:

1. It even gets made

AND

2. It gets released in my lifetime

AND

3. It has the full backing of blizzard(as in doesn't get dropped and some other companies/people pick it up)

 

[TailsRodrigez]

watch the road review by moviebob and replace how to make a good halo movie with wow.

 

[theultimateend]

A movie.
Out of Warcraft.
*facedesk*

A Warcraft movie doesn't actually sound that bad.

A World of Warcraft movie however... *bigger facedesk*

As far as I've seen, Blizzard has been very careful thus far to dub it a WC movie, rather than a WoW one.

Fair enough... it's referred to as a WoW movie in this article though ^^

Although considering that the only difference between the story in Warcraft and the story in the World of Warcraft is the distinct lack of constant FMV's makes me wonder why there were face desks at all.

I take it I'm the only person that enjoys the storytelling Blizzard has managed? Or are we not allowed to enjoy things that cause some people to not feed their children? Because if that is the case everyone here better hate television. I demand it!

Raimi is going to make a terrible movie. I figure I've got a 50/50 shot here. Since I don't think there is such thing as a moderately fine movie. It will be amazing or terrible.

This movie will be terrible.

Complete shame too. But what can you do?

Just wondering....How the heck do you make a movie out of an mmorgp???

Considering that collectively any moderately successful MMORPG is likely carrying within it more backstory and text than the largest book series you've ever read.

I imagine pretty darn easy.

if this movie ever gets out it'll be viewed by millions and millions of people.(on it's first day)

And because of that people will say it is obviously a fantastic movie. Indeed the movie of the year. Anyone who criticizes it will be accused of "trying to be cool" and it'll spawn sequels that are equally poor but equally popular.

In the end nobody will realize that sales of something you cannot return have no real connection with quality and are tied in more with your ability to market. Then again quality and popularity are hardly synchronous in the US or the world at large. Unless we are to omit many of the worst atrocities in human history that had (and some still have) absolutely massive followings.

I'm just a die hard follower of the idea that if it can't be returned then it can't be judged by its sales.

 

[Byers]

A movie.
Out of Warcraft.
*facedesk*

I fail to see the issue. Elaborate.

Aside from the fact that I think the Warcraft franchise has devolved into juvenile mickey mouse fluff, and MMOs being soulless machinations that steal people's lives away, there's the fact that every single movie based upon a video game has so far been absolutely atrocious, combined with the fact that WoW, being an ever ongoing game, has a perpetual and neverending storyline - and a movie based on such a game would be likely to either:
1) Have very little to do with the original property, based on some of the same characters and but largely abandoning the "canon" in favor of different storylines.
2) Be a recap of events that the majority of the target audience has already experienced.
3) Or be a continuation or further development of the latest game storylines, with a completely different look and art style, indirectly forcing further development into the game to either recognize this direction as actual lore or disregard it altogether, ultimately making the movie(s) feel like something that's pointless and shouldn't exist.

It's also the fact that WoW has a cartoony art style that a real action movie would have to abandon to not look ridiculous, and is thus liable to share very few recognizable traits with the original property even without taking story or script into consideration.

Basically, adapting a video game is fundamentally different from adapting a book, because video games are already a visual live-action media, so you're basically adapting something most of your core target audience has already seen in a presentation very similar to the adaptation, but introducing differences, large or small, that will annoy or weird out most of them. And adapting an actual ongoing game opens up a whole other minefield of conflicts and weirdness.

Hope that was elaborate enough for you.

 

[Amnestic]

actually WoW isnt in refference to the game, its a refferences to the maps, locations, and charicters in the game, along with the charicters from the storyline. the name is more appropriet as it is not actually a Warcraft game as everyone except Trollbane, Khadgar, and Graymane from the original games are still alive or involved.

Your grammar is making me cry inside, but did I hear you say that Khadgar isn't in WoW or am I misunderstanding?

wow, i really fucked that up.

what i mean is of the original characters from Warcraft, only 6 are alive, and one is a ghost who has only one piece left to be involved in, and he wont even make an appearance.
Danath Trollbane, Grenn Graymane, and Khadgar are the last 3 mortal charicters left still involved, although Garona could pop up at any time, and likely will have to in Cataclysm, while the last 3 Immortals are Yersa, Alexstraza, and Nozdormu, as Deathwing is going to die in a year and a half

Technically Garona's already popped up, admittedly only in the comic series. She and her kid who is

Spoiler

Also Medivh's child. How's that for weird?

pop up during the Ahn'Qiraj storyline and it continues on from there.

1) Have very little to do with the original property, based on some of the same characters and but largely abandoning the "canon" in favor of different storylines.
2) Be a recap of events that the majority of the target audience has already experienced.
3) Or be a continuation or further development of the latest game storylines, with a completely different look and art style, indirectly forcing further development into the game to either recognize this direction as actual lore or disregard it altogether, ultimately making the movie(s) feel like something that's pointless and shouldn't exist.

I fail to see how elaborating on past story is a bad thing, especially if it's done well.

It's also the fact that WoW has a cartoony art style that a real action movie would have to abandon to not look ridiculous, and is thus liable to share very few recognizable traits with the original property even without taking story or script into consideration.

Not so. They could have it set entirely in their CG style which they've been using for Haruhi knows how many years now.

Hope that was elaborate enough for you.

Elaborate, yes. Agreeable, no.