Sam Raimi To Direct World of Warcraft Movie

Decado writes "Blizzard has just announced that Sam Raimi is to direct the new World of Warcraft movie. 'Raimi, acclaimed director of the blockbuster Spider-Man series, will bring the forces of the Horde and the Alliance to life in epic live-action film. Charles Roven's Atlas Entertainment will produce alongside Raimi's Stars Road Entertaiment.' While it's still early in the process, does this offer hope that someone might finally make a good movie based on a game IP?"

Chris Metzen as co-producer

[Quince alPillan]

What I find interesting is that Chris Metzen, Blizzard's senior VP of creative development and writer for much of the Warcraft universe is listed as a co-producer of the movie.

Re:... Film from a game...

[eldavojohn]

Clue!

How interesting you should pick this movie. In this movie, if I recall correctly, they had three endings. Because the Clue game has many combinations of endings so they tried to include that spirit in the movie. I personally enjoyed it.

Now let's look at other movies based on RPG games like Final Fantasy or Hitman. I must confess I've not seen or played the latter but let's face it, you have a definite ending in the game and you get a definite ending in the movie. Much more tangible to translate to the movie what makes the game so good -- plot (or what you have of it).

Now let's look at games that have no definite ending or story like Dungeons and Dragons. Ever see that movie? How painful. Why? Because it could not embody what makes the game so great: the unexpected. And once it's laid on celluloid, what's done is done. We're not going to watch Dungeons and Dragons and have the dungeon master lay different traps or experiences for the player every time we watch it. And, effectively, the movie cannot embody what I see as the greatest part of D&D. It can't even leave much to the imagination. It was doomed.

I see World of Warcraft following the same path as D&D. You're not going to get the great game mechanics, instances, battlegrounds, unique experience, etc. that you find in the game and package it into a movie. It's bound to disappoint because by definition, it must embody something that cannot contain what makes the game great. You might as well lift the plot from Dune, The Count of Monte Cristo or Lord of the Rings and dump it into the Warcraft universe. This movie has the odds stacked against it. Especially if I am expecting the World of Warcraft experience from it. How do you build an ending to a movie for a game that has no ending?

Dear Hollywood: DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL!

[sgant]

You know what, I'm boycotting any movie from now on that's "based" on anything. Be it a book or a comic or a TV Show or video game or a "reboot" of an old movie series or remake of an old movie or whatever. Give me something original.

Come on...I'd take a "Pan's Labyrinth" or "In Bruges" or "WALL-E" over a "Transformers 1 or 2" or "Batman _____(insert verb here)" or "Warcraft: The Movie".

Re:Blizzard has some experience

[Opportunist]

If you ask me, a Diablo movie would be heaps more interesting. If done right, with good SFX, this would blow the snot out of so many other fantasy-action movies that managed to make it to the big screen lately.

The story is right there in Diablo II, all you have to do is take it and run with it, collect a party of various fighters and let it roll.

Re:Hmm...

[linzeal]

Yeah and what is up with the DnD folks being all teetotalers now? Back in my day, we were taking LSD, smoking pot and drinking Pig's Eye beer and coffee for days up in Minnesota during the cold cold winter. We had vampire the masquerade as well as our own material, DnD 2nd Ed rules and Rift stuff usually appearing 36-48 hours in, after the 2nd or 3rd tab this usually devolved into legions of naked vampire women fucking and sucking their way across the land while our tank upgraded from being a Paladin to a debauched Juicer and I usually ended up either being a Malkavian (crazy) vampire who thought he was Santa Claus and carried a 10 foot tall flaming chainsaw that played Xmas tunes or a Glitter Boy with 6 arms and 2 Rail Guns. I went to a 3rd Ed DnD game recently with some co-workers in their early 20's and they became angry at me when I wanted to attempt to mate with the Orc with my evil chaotic evil monk instead of fighting it. The entire night, the whole 2 hours they did not fuck with the GM once, the GM read his story like a script and they talked mostly about television shows and work drama. I never went back even though they asked. Reason they were lame, methinks it was the fact that they were drinking iced green tea and water and no sugary, fatty or salty snacks. They had fucking herbed goat's cheese and those Scandinavian hard tack crackers. Yeah sure if I eat enough cheeseburgers I'll roleplay eating crackers with smelly white curd on them, but don't make me eat the props.

Re:... Film from a game...

[Sylver Dragon]

While I am skeptical about how a Warcraft movie will come off, I actually have hope for it. The folks at Blizzard, and a few dedicated writers have put together a fairly good fantasy world (if a bit cliche) which has any number of good plot lines to use for a movie. I'm not really expecting that it will be World of Warcraft: The Movie, I'm expecting that it will either lift one of the plot lines from the existing series of games, or simply carry one of the plots currently in the game to conclusion. There's a small piece of me which thinks that Blizzard may use this as a vehicle to tell the story of the final defeat of the Lich King Arthas, but that could just be wishful thinking.

I have to disagree about the reasons for the failure of the Dungeons and Dragons movie. If it were the case that the D&D game didn't translate well to static media, the books would not be doing well. But that is not the case, between the Dragonlance novels and the Forgotten Realms novels, D&D as a static form of entertainment has done quite well. However, in spite of great writing by the likes of Weiss and Hickman, Ed Greenwood, or some of Salvatore's stuff, the folks who put together the movie decided that what a D&D movie needed was more Marlon Wayans. And not even well written SNL Marlon Wayans, but a bad rendition of Chris Tucker's character from the Fifth Element, which was intentionally annoying and over the top, and then Marlon Wayans took that character over the top. His character was so annoying and awful that the audience in the theater cheered when he died, literally let out a loud cheer. The only sad thing about that scene was that it was special effects and we, the audience, were not being treated to a well deserved snuff film of Marlon Wayans actually being killed. Add to that horrid character an arch-nemesis who's entire shtick is "I'm blue and EVIL!!11!one!" No development, no background, no motivation, just EVIL. Granted, that is pretty common in D&D games, but I was expecting slightly better from a movie. We also had dragons which were just the bastard love children of a tyrannosaurus and a pterodactyl, with no ancient intelligence, and computer graphics so bad it was physically painful. While I will agree that a good D&D movie would be very hard, I don't think it's impossible, it would just look a hell of a lot like the Lord of the Rings movies, largely because D&D stole very heavily from Tolkien.

Now, as for the Warcraft movie, I do see one huge problem: styling. Take a good look at the armor, weapons and equipment most Warcraft characters and creatures wear. It's ridiculous. It's a case of "let's see how large we can make it! Now add a few spikes, a few more spikes, fuck it add a bucket full of spikes! And make it Glow! Oh, and make sure it has spikes." You could use the word "impractical" to describe it, but that would be like describing the universe as "big." It fails to capture the true extent of the situation. It's fine in a video game, as video gamers we're more interested in looking cool versus practicality. Inside each of us there is that ten year old who wants to see the Flaming Sword of Awesomeness and Fire with a dragon's head pommel, a bat-wing crossguard and intricate etched runes and filigree down a jagged lightning bolt shaped blade, on fire. And in a video game, we're willing to suspend disbelief just enough that we ignore the obvious implications of the wielder tearing up his own hand, not being able to sheath the damn thing because of the shape and fire, and gods help the wielder if he actually hits something, because it's going to be stuck. But on a big screen, with the hero looking like a ridiculous twat with sholderpads which would have made Madonna in the '80's laugh; armor which is catching on everything, and stabbing him when he ties to itch his nose; we're just not going to buy it. The ridiculousness is going to be obvious, and because we'll have some pretty boy actor in it, it will just be wrong. About the only way out of it I see is for a CG movie ala Toy Story. I don't know why, but when a movie is animated we seem more willing to let the ridiculous go.

Re:Dear Hollywood: DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL!

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, there's an old saying that there are actually only two stories: hero goes on a journey and stranger comes to town. Who originally said it, I have no idea; I just put a cursory look and can't seem to find any credible evidence for a first known printing.

For anybody interested in the topic, I recommend reading "The Hero with a Thousand Faces," which is an incredible work in comparative mythology and literature.