World of Warcraft: The Movie?

[Tricky Thumb]

Yeah, you heard right. Gamespot is reporting that accoding to the New York (f'ing) Times, Blizzard is working on getting a WoW movie made. Now if this weren't coming from The New York Times I'd have dismissed this as a definate wild rumor, but it's gotta have a little truth behind it coming from those guys.

Links, for useful fact-like purposes.

Gamespot article (http://www.gamespot.com/e3/e3story.html?sid=6149638)

New York (F'ing) Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/09/technology/09video.html)

Also Hollywood Reporter (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/film/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002464761) has some info. - Thanks FallenStar

I just couldn't believe this was true at first, but then I started thinking about how many people play this game who'd easily go out and see the movie. Hmm...

[RainOfTerror]

You might want to re-read those articles, it's not a movie based on WoW the game, but rather a movie set in the WarCraft universe.

Totally different

[Captain Awesome]

So its going to be Lord Of The Rings with overly bright, gay colors?

I always love when they say this they will do the genre right and proud and well we all know how true that is. They screwed up severly and should have had the amazingly talented Blizzard cinematics team do a whole film instead of it being live action.


double ugh!

[pheriannath]

If it's not being done by Blizzard's CG team, that's already a major strike against it.

[Nameback]

This boggles the mind, I think its best to wait for the shock to pass before drawing any conclusions.

[Tricky Thumb]

You might want to re-read those articles, it's not a movie based on WoW the game, but rather a movie set in the WarCraft universe.

Totally different

It's the same difference, since WoW is based off of, uh, hmm... oh yeah! Warcraft. Stop being so dang fastidious. :P

[GunnyMo]

If it's not being done by Blizzard's CG team, that's already a major strike against it.

Exactly my thinking. I've always wanted to see a CG movie done by Blizzard. They are the best in the industry.

At least they have the D&D movie to use as a baseline of what not to do and LOTR as what to shoot for. Hopefully it falls somewhere inbetween.

[Savok]

Really? I thought everything in the NYT was wild rumor *rimshot*

And if this goes live action, we may have the worst VG film of all time on our hands.

[PopoWRX]

I'm interested in how they will visualize Night Elves and Taurens considering their size differential with Humans.

[Verocity]

I can almost picture it:

Legendary takes the final cut to Blizzard for review...

Legendary: Here you go - the greatest movie ever made based off of a video game universe.
Blizzard Rep: Not so fast.
Legendary: Huh?
Blizzard Rep: Pass this on for review Mrs. Baker.

A short time later...

Tigole: That warlock's pet was way too buff.
Tseric: Yea, and did you see how fast that Paladin killed the peon?
Fangtooth: Where's the !#%@ing murlocks?!?

[Pinku!]

I'm interested in how they will visualize Night Elves and Taurens considering their size differential with Humans.

Exactly. That and the fact that Blizzard's art style for Warcaft is so unique I doubt it'd translate well into "real" actors. If it is going to actually be live action there's going to be some heavy cg in it I bet, but so long as it's not OMG LOOK AT THESE HAWT GRAFIKS! CG I'll be fine.

Who am I kidding? I'm probably going to go see it anyway even if it horribly panned and looks like booty. I'm such a weak, weak child. >_<

[Abednigo]

Now if this weren't coming from The New York Times I'd have dismissed this as a definate wild rumor, but it's gotta have a little truth behind it coming from those guys.

Now that's funny.

[balamoor]

I can almost picture it:

Legendary takes the final cut to Blizzard for review...

Legendary: Here you go - the greatest movie ever made based off of a video game universe.
Blizzard Rep: Not so fast.
Legendary: Huh?
Blizzard Rep: Pass this on for review Mrs. Baker.

A short time later...

Tigole: That warlock's pet was way too buff.
Tseric: Yea, and did you see how fast that Paladin killed the peon?
Fangtooth: Where's the !#%@ing murlocks?!?


More Like:

Tigole: Fuck this shit where are the Raid scenes?.
Tseric: Hey Tig Calm down man Remember Mike said one more outburst
Tigole: Fuck Him I'm god here this game lives because of my Raids
Fangtooth: Where's the !#%@ing murlocks?!?
Tseric: Seriously You're out of control...Remember the New York times fiasco..
Tigole: Fiasco my ass so the whiney Bitches can't deal with the Raid or Die message.
Tseric: Ummm the "Whiney Bitches" are our customers...
Fangtooth: Where's the !#%@ing murlocks?!?
Tigole: Wrong Dicklick The Fires Of Heaven Guild are our customers everyone else is just a Thrall.
Caydiem: What Mr. Kaplan really means is that we are striving to create content for all play styles.
Tigole: Shut up Bitch!

[Nite_Moogle]

You guys know Fangtooth got canned like six months ago right?

[51|RandoM]

Exactly my thinking. I've always wanted to see a CG movie done by Blizzard. They are the best in the industry.


I think the intro to the recent Warhammer RTS is better than anything I've seen out of Blizzard, at least in terms of CG.

[balamoor]

You guys know Fangtooth got canned like six months ago right?

Fang wasn't canned he quit, because he couldn't deal with some of the internal Bullshit that was going on , that is directly from Craig Paker an Employee at Blizzard.

[NoName]

Considering Blizzard's policy on not anouncing games until they're close to completion do to Blizzard's high quality standards (after the Starcraft Ghost fiasco), I wonder how long they've been thinking (or working) about this movie. If it's officially being announced soon, the movie has already been started.

And yes, I think a CG movie would be a lot better and true to the world than anything live action.

[Mortis]

The stories from the Warcraft universe are fantastic, I have wanted to see a movie for quite some time. It would really take several films to do it justice though.

[balamoor]

Honestly guys I don't think the movie will ever see the light of day. The Supposed EQ movie had as much venture capital I think the Myst Movie had like 750 million.... We will hear a couple more Blurbs then it will fade into Oblivion.

[Sloth]

I saw the Warcraft Theaterical commercial which looked great. Of course so did the WoW intro.

WoW movie needs to be CG like the intro. Real actors and live action would = UWE Boll's Dungeon Siege where Burt Reynolds plays a king...

[gzsfrk]

A short time later...

Tigole: That warlock's pet was way too buff.
Tseric: Yea, and did you see how fast that Paladin killed the peon?
Fangtooth: Where's the !#%@ing murlocks?!?

You forgot to include:

Eyonix: Shaman need more buff!


And as an aside, let us not forget that Fangtooth has long been gone from this world, Light rest his murloc soul.

[Roc Ingersol]

So its going to be Lord Of The Rings with overly bright, gay colors?
And huuuuuge fuckin shoulderpads.
;)

Blizzard's signature visual style would look ridiculous in a live action film. And with that and their consistently awesome gameplay irrelevant to the movie's potential, what's left? I don't know that you could make a quality script true to their lore - and I don't even know that you'd want to try.

The best thing they could possibly do is just try to buy/make the best fantasy film they can, and slap a few warcraft touches on it.

In any case, odds are this'll go the way of their Diablo deal.
(which is much more suited to the cross-over, particularly as live action)

[gzsfrk]

More Like:

Tigole: Fuck this shit where are the Raid scenes?.
Tseric: Hey Tig Calm down man Remember Mike said one more outburst
Tigole: Fuck Him I'm god here this game lives because of my Raids
Fangtooth: Where's the !#%@ing murlocks?!?
Tseric: Seriously You're out of control...Remember the New York times fiasco..
Tigole: Fiasco my ass so the whiney Bitches can't deal with the Raid or Die message.
Tseric: Ummm the "Whiney Bitches" are our customers...
Fangtooth: Where's the !#%@ing murlocks?!?
Tigole: Wrong Dicklick The Fires Of Heaven Guild are our customers everyone else is just a Thrall.
Caydiem: What Mr. Kaplan really means is that we are striving to create content for all play styles.
Tigole: Shut up Bitch!

QFT, man.... QFT.

[NeuroMan42]

Better be CG or it will be damn silly.

[gzsfrk]

The stories from the Warcraft universe are fantastic, I have wanted to see a movie for quite some time. It would really take several films to do it justice though.

I agree; although rather than telling the entire story, they could simply start off by creating a film based on a nice, compartmentalized sub-set of the lore. The real advantage of the Warcraft universe is that it's such a rich setting from within which countless excellent stories can be told.

And besides, having 6 million+ customers who are already paying a monthly fee for your game and would doubtless all flock to see this film isn't a bad-sized built-in audience to reduce the risk of recovering production costs.

[midrael]

Yeah I imagine this movie would have to start off basically with the initial invasion of the orcs into Azeroth. Pretty much just start at the beginning.

And I vote for all-CG too! I'm not sure they could pull off Blizzard-version Orcs and Trolls without some serious CG usage.

[insidious]

Its pretty easy to pile on hate for something still in development...


...But you know you're going to go see it anyway.

Where can i preorder tix?

[Mortis]

I agree; although rather than telling the entire story, they could simply start off by creating a film based on a nice, compartmentalized sub-set of the lore. The real advantage of the Warcraft universe is that it's such a rich setting from within which countless excellent stories can be told.


Yes they could certainly do that. Good point about the richness, they could pluck something from anywhere in the existing storylines or even branch off with something new and have an excellent feature film.

I am in agreement with it being CG as well. Their CG cinematics have always amazed me, given the time and resources you usually have with a feature film what they end up with could be mind blowing. They do like to take their time with projects, I can see the trailer now "Warcraft the movie....coming when it's done".

[Wyrm]

I'm almost as ecstatic and scared as I was when I heard about the Halo movie. The only other game franchises I've wanted to be seen made into movies were Blizzard's, and this is a freaking dream come true. But, everyone who's said it has made a good point. Should be their CG team. Of course, those high quality cinematics are 6-8 months in the making, and they are extremely short. They'd have to devote a whole hell of a lot of time and money, not to mention expand the CG team 10 fold to finish the movie in a reasonable amount of time.

Perhaps a goox mix of CG and live action will do, but who knows? Blizzard doesnt seem like the kind of company that would let a movie studio taint their franchise with a shoddy game to movie conversion. Of course, I said the same thing about Wing Commander, and Silent Hill (I did sort of like Silent Hill though).