Sam Raimi to direct World of Warcraft movie, thus ensuring that World of Warcraft will maintain a lead over Duke Nukem for pop reference non-sequitors in the near future.
Edit: Variety’s posted a story with (very slightly more) details.
The plan is for Raimi to supervise development of “Warcraft” and shoot the picture after he completes work on “Spider-Man 4,” which gets under way early next year for Columbia Pictures.
#1 by Gx1080 on July 22nd, 2009
Cool. At least theres hope that it wont suck and it wont be vaporware.
#2 by J. on July 22nd, 2009
But where is he going to put the old yellow Delta 88?
#3 by Vetarnias on July 22nd, 2009
And I will still avoid it.
#4 by Paks on July 22nd, 2009
I swear if the trailer for this movie shows a bunch of half naked female night elves dancing on mailboxes I’ll puke!
#5 by J. on July 22nd, 2009
Bruce Campbell as Arthas.
#6 by Jason on July 22nd, 2009
My understanding, despite how all these places choose to report it, is that its a Warcraft movie, not specifically a World of Warcraft movie. It could possibly be a good film if they go back and use the original games as the source and do their best to avoid WoW.
#7 by Thomas on July 22nd, 2009
So Kevin Sorbo will be the warrior and Bruce Campbell will be the rogue.
EPIC.
#8 by geldonyetich on July 22nd, 2009
With that many players, I’m surprised they haven’t garnered a TV series yet.
#9 by sinij on July 22nd, 2009
MMORPG-themed movies? How are they going to deal with fast-changing medium like that? Why do they even assume that WoW going to be relevant in 2+-ish years it will take to get movie out?
#10 by chabuhi on July 22nd, 2009
So, presumably, it will be at least 2011 before development starts, right? The film bows in 2012? What are the chances that WoW’s popularity could wane by then to the point that interest in a mp adaptation drops so low that it’s not worth producing?
I mean, right now, I tell myself I’ll go see this movie even if it doesn’t bow til 2015. So, who am I kidding?
Instead of live-action, I think they should take footage from a closed server and voice dialog with big-name talent.
#11 by chabuhi on July 22nd, 2009
Oops – read further … I suppose if it’s in the Warcraft universe and not specific to WoW, then it probably has a longer shelf-life.
#12 by Ashendarei on July 22nd, 2009
Sadly it’s going to be live action. Blizzard COMPLETELY fails here for not showcasing their glorious CG movie talent
Seriously. Who the hell would want to watch a non CG movie, based on the alliance PoV, about a video game?
/sigh
I won’t be watching this just on general principle.
#13 by geldonyetich on July 22nd, 2009
I wouldn’t quite go this far, but computer animation would probably be a better choice. Some kind of fairly-high quality rendering would connect better with WoW players than just dressing up beefcake and cheesecake in rags and having them feign Azaroth.
#14 by Freakazoid on July 22nd, 2009
If they use the warcraft 2 timeline, I might give it a shot, but they won’t. So instead I hope it goes a quiet death when 2011 rolls around.
#15 by Din A3 on July 22nd, 2009
Am I the only one who thinks Warcraft’s lore is a POS? It’s a Warhammer rip-off at best, which in turn is pretty weak… So we get a weak material rip-off based movie. Yay!
#16 by J. on July 22nd, 2009
“Sadly it’s going to be live action. Blizzard COMPLETELY fails here for not showcasing their glorious CG movie talent”
They outsource those.
#17 by Sullee on July 22nd, 2009
Purple hubris.
#18 by wayld on July 23rd, 2009
It’s not going to be directed by Uwe Boll, so it is not lost yet
The Warcraft universe has a lot of stories which could be used for a decent movie. Let’s just hope they don’t create some strange “parallel Warcraft”.
#19 by Steve on July 23rd, 2009
South Park did it.
#20 by Vajarra on July 23rd, 2009
“Seriously. Who the hell would want to watch a non CG movie, based on the alliance PoV, about a video game?”
Considerably more than would watch one about talking giant furry cows, I wager.
#21 by Arkazon on July 23rd, 2009
“Boll also made a bid to direct the upcoming World of Warcraft movie, but was turned away by the owners of the Warcraft franchise, Blizzard.[4]” From Wikipedia on Uwe Boll.
#22 by Amp on July 23rd, 2009
Raimi is doing that tv fantasy series Legend of the Seeker. Though mangling the Sword of Truth storyline, it’s a decent fantasy series. The fight scenes are great, none of that blurred camera work in the dark where you can’t see what the hell is going on. Kahlan is hawt as hell.
It’ll be an entertaining fantasy movie. Wow still suks.