Sam Raimi To Direct World of Warcraft Movie 298
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?"
Wouldn't this movie... (Score:5, Funny)
Can they even do that?
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Re:Wouldn't this movie... (Score:4, Funny)
It's interactive. You watch as Frodo the Gnome enters the world at level 1, and kills kobolds to level 80. The sequel features instance PUGging (it's a spring break drinking movie), and the trilogy rounds out with guild drama in raid content (this is more like one of those plotless teeny bopper movies where everyone is depressed and mad at their parents).
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They plan to provide WIFI at the theaters so players can bring their laptops.
Players without laptops will require a family member or friend to take their spot in the raid, or risk getting kicked from their guild
>.
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... Film from a game... (Score:2, Insightful)
... this film gonna be bad... like so many other film based on a game... I can't even name one good film based from a game.
Maybe it's just a feeling...
Re:... Film from a game... (Score:5, Insightful)
Clue!
Well, at least it had Tim Curry, Madeline Khan and Christopher Llyod in it... how bad could it be?
So bad it's good!
Re:... Film from a game... (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
Re:... Film from a game... (Score:5, Informative)
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?
I may be wrong on this, but the press release only says "the Warcraft© universe", not "World of Warcraft". This means that the movie could, indeed, have a definite ending, as the first three games did. Previous rumors seem to support the idea that the movie will be based somewhere between Warcraft III and World of Warcraft, as does the whole "Warcraft© universe" thing that was stated.
/IANADOWUH - I Am Not A Director Or Warcraft Universe Historian
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Not sure why there is so much speculation on the basics of the story line when blizzard has already been talking about this for some time.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6176224.html?tag=top_stories;title;0 [gamespot.com]
It will cover part of the lore before the timeline for WoW began. All the comments about the movie trying to replicate a repeatative gameplay mechanic have obviously never paid one bit of attention to the game or read any of the quest logs etc. There is plenty of story there. The game must remain static so p
Re:... Film from a game... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been playing WoW for 3-4 years now, and I'm curious as to what unique experiences you're looking for. Getting ganked during the Stranglethorn fishing contest? Spending 40 hours fishing pools in Northrend trying to get the sea turtle mount? Watching some bot-based toon running in circles for some Chinese gold farmer? Spending 30 minutes challenging the door boss to get in to an instance?
While there aren't ends for the players, there are story lines that run through the game. Theoretically, they could easily pick something from the Lich King, the whole Scourge vs. everybody fight thing, but I suspect that pessimism here is warranted. I don't enjoy the game itself, per se. I like having something to do while chatting with guildies. That, and the achievement system integrates nicely with my OCD.
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Re:... Film from a game... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they can pull it off with WoW, because while the *game* moves on, various subplots don't. They could totally make a movie about Onyxia or C'thun getting pwnzored, because they can choose from any subplot they darn well please. They could even do the origin of Deathwing and the creation of the demon soul, events which have never taken place in WoW the game but are an important part of the lore.
The thing with DnD is not just that it, as a game, has no definite ending. It just doesn't have the same lore structure to back it up. DnD (from an outsider's perspective, at least) lacks NPCs with names who run around doing important stuff. WoW doesn't lack any of that because of its RTS storylines, which since day 1 have guided the path of stories that WoW has told.
Onyxia was killed, C'thun lies dead, Kiljaden was defeated, and now the Lich King has the Alliance and Horde knocking on his front door crying for blood. Stories in WoW end, even if the game itself doesn't.
Re:... Film from a game... (Score:5, Funny)
But this is Sam Raimi. It could be so bad that it might actually be good. Especially if Bruce Campbell plays both protagonist and Lich King.
Re:... Film from a game... (Score:5, Funny)
But this is Sam Raimi. It could be so bad that it might actually be good. Especially if Bruce Campbell plays both protagonist and Lich King.
Oh man, they could easily do that if they do the story of how the Lich King came to be and it would be awesome.
[In the snow of Northrend, Arthas, his mind already becoming corrupted, is confronted by a sinister doppelganger of himself]
Arthas: What demonic trickery is this?! What are you?
Bad Arthas: [mocking child-like voice] I'm baad Arthas. And you're good Arthas! You're a goodie little two shoes! [Bad Arthas dances back and forth, teasing Arthas and singing] Little-goodie-two-shoes. Little-goodie-two-shoes.
Arthas: Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the sword. [decapitates Bad Arthas with a single swipe of Frostmourne].
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But the Lich King started as Arthas, the most annoying pally of all. It's perfect!
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Uwe Boll does not count. He makes no movies. He exposes film material so he gets federal movie aid money. Whether or not they do any good in the movies or whether or not anyone comes to see it, he doesn't care, he already got his money.
Basically, my assumption is that he saves a lot of money that way because the plot is, essentially, already there.
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I thought that the first Mortal Kombat was pretty good. Aside from that however, I would tend to agree. I also wonder why Raimi insists on making crap film after crap film. Why does he waste his time on licenses like Spider-Man and now Warcraft, when he should be working on the Evil Dead 4!
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I also wonder why Raimi insists on making crap film after crap film. Why does he waste his time on licenses like Spider-Man and now Warcraft, when he should be working on the Evil Dead 4!
Is Drag Me To Hell that bad? I haven't seen it yet, but I heard it was reaching back to the days if Evil Dead. WoW in Army Of Darkness style is something I might watch.
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Hmm... I liked the Silent Hill movie, as well as the Resident Evil movies. Of course I didn't play the games until after, but I felt that they did a nice job getting the feeling of the game into the movie. And then in Silent Hills case, the latest game took some element of the movie which I found interesting as well.
Re:... Film from a game... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't even name one good film based from a game.
Resident Evil was pretty good and it actually one of the few video game movies that actually didn't just make random shit up for its own plot.
Beyond that I'm hard pressed to think of any movies based on games that were any good... There was the first Mortal Kombat movie, but it was about as good as a Van Dam movie.
Dear Hollywood: DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL! (Score:2, Interesting)
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".
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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".
Did you actually _see_ Batman: The Dark Knight? That's easily the best movie on your list, and one of the best movies in recent years.
Re:Dear Hollywood: DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL! (Score:4, Insightful)
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I took a lit class in college years ago and the prof said something that's stuck with me since - there are only 7 original plot lines to a narrative/story, everything else just changes setting and mixes up the characters a bit.
Are you sure you're not mixing that up with conflicts?
Man vs. Man
Man vs. Society
Man vs. Himself
Man vs. Nature
Man vs. The Supernatural
Man vs. Technology
Man vs... err... bugger all. Can't remember.
Seems to me you can get more than 7 plots just using combinations of these.
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Or things could have changed since I took lit, since nothing is sacred these days. :)
If they can declare pluto not a planet, I'm sure they can pigeonhole 50 combinations of conflicts into 7 plots. ;)
Re:Dear Hollywood: DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL! (Score:4, Informative)
2. Overcoming the Monster
3. The Quest
4. Voyage and Return
5. Comedy
6. Tragedy
7. Rebirth
Basically, it's 7 *categories* of plot, identified by Shakespeare. I don't have examples for any of them, but some of them are self-evident from their names, I think.
Re:Dear Hollywood: DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL! (Score:4, Funny)
Man vs. Man - PvP
Man vs. Society - RP
Man vs. Himself - I have a paper due tomorrow, but my guild is raiding Ulduar
Man vs. Nature - PvE
Man vs. The Supernatural - God says that j.o. to my dancing naked night elf bank alt is a PERVERSION!!
Man vs. Technology - Patch Tuesday
Man vs... err... bugger all. Can't remember. - Alzheimers
Yeah, that about covers it.
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The Resident Evil series and Silent Hill movie were pretty good IMO. I didn't like the camera angles/controls in RE though (and never tried the rest of the series, though I did see someone playing 3 or 4 and it still looked pretty crap), and never tried Silent Hill. If I was a fan of the games, perhaps I wouldn't have enjoyed the movies..
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"I can't even name one good film based from a game."
Advent Children was really good.
If you're not watching from the PoV of an FF7 fan, then no, it really wasn't. It was pretty.
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Keep in mind, the Warcraft universe has a highly developed lore - while the story isn't always a major focus in WoW, it's there, it's been explored in novels, comics and other media - I'd expect the movie to be more like this, a telling of the underlying Warcraft story, than an attempt to translate the game into cinema.
Thank God (Score:2)
Thank God they didn't tap Uwe Bol for this one.
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Edit: Hopefully they won't cast Ben Affleck as Varian Wrynn either... or in any role, for that matter.
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Yellow Oldsmobile (Score:3, Informative)
Why can't I ever compose all my thoughts before clicking submit?
Look for a gnome-engineer-built yellow steampunk Oldsmobile on the streets of Stormwind.
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Great link. :)
Gotta love this quote:
"To be honest, the real gamers are the typical download guys, right?" Boll reasoned. "They don't pay anything for movies, because they illegally download the movies. So why [should I] please these guys? I need the normal audience."
You repeatedly come up snake-eyes on that roll too, you shithead.
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Didn't they laugh him out of their offices when he offered to direct it?
That's certainly what I heard. I'm glad the Blizzard guys have some taste.
spiderman 3 (Score:2)
Did anyone forget the shitstain that was Spiderman 3?
We had emo Peter Parker, and a song and dance number in the middle of it!
Here's hoping Raimi goes back to his evil dead roots and makes a proper movie . . .
oh yeah and Bruce Campbell [bruce-campbell.com] had better be in it!
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No (Score:2)
Repeat (Score:5, Funny)
For the real WoW experience, buy it on DVD and watch it a few hundred times.
Re:Repeat (Score:5, Funny)
As my good friend pointed out, if you want the old school experience, get 40 people who don't necessarily like each other and organise a time each week for all of them to cram into one room and watch a particular scene. Be sure to rewind the scene when one of them acts like an asshat.
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As my good friend pointed out, if you want the old school experience, get 40 people who don't necessarily like each other and organise a time each week for all of them to cram into one room and watch a particular scene. Be sure to rewind the scene when one of them acts like an asshat.
Damn you for posting AC. You actually made me laugh aloud.
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It will be a DVD on blue ray. After the first run it starts over with a few things changed. Then the next one has a few more things changed. This repeats until the blue ray disk is full.
Then you insert disk number 2, and it that pattern continues.
The challenge is to see what the differences are.
This is not going to go well... (Score:2)
Because of their business model, MMORPGs have to feature large worlds where large numbers of characters can be the center of attention, to the degree that there even is one. In most cases, WoW being one, there isn't even much in the way of "history" going on. The world stays pretty much the same, no matter what you do, the same NPCs show up, with only th
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Games, in principle, could make perfectly decent movies(half life could really do with a decent treatment)
The problem with game>movie transitions is the same problem with movie>game transitions. In both scenarios you have a set amount of people who are going to buy the game or see the movie for no other reason than the name. Since the developer or producer can already count on X amount of sales regardless of how much time or money they put into the project, their incentive to put more than the bare minimum into it is therefore reduced. Until the average consumer can start looking past brand recognition
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half life could really do with a decent treatment
Some are speculating that the upcoming District 9 is the half life movie, but they didn't get the rights to actually do halflife.
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Some are speculating that the upcoming District 9 is the half life movie
And they would be wrong. The premise of District 9 isn't even close to that of Half Life.
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In most cases, WoW being one, there isn't even much in the way of "history" going on. The world stays pretty much the same, no matter what you do, the same NPCs show up, with only the occasional prescripted changed. That isn't inspiring material for a movie. At best, they'll pretty much have to make a Warcraft movie and just use WoW as a marketing tie-in.
It really depends on the angle they take. 99% of game movies I've seen in the past have been gimmicky films designed as a sequential series of scenes where they show off some specific memorable moment from a game, as if all the games players are going to rise up each time and "OMG!!!! THEY HAZ MADE IT IN LIVE ACTION!!! I LOVE MR BOWE!!!!". It never works out that way, but they keep trying nonetheless. Street Fighter the movie was one of the worst I saw in this. They came up with this contrived storyline
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Despite what you think, the Warcraft series has a HUGE backstory and set of lore to work from.
I'm not sure J.R.R. Tolkien and Michael Moorcock were actually writing with Blizzard in mind.
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There is major error in the article title, summary, and even very nearly every article out there on the net. To demonstrate, let's go to the actual source of the information, the Blizzard press release [blizzard.com].
The error is this: the movie is not a World of Warcraft movie. The movie is a Warcraft movie. It's a movie set in the Warcraft universe, not one based on the World of Warcraft game. You're right, out of necessity WoW is fairly static - that's how it is that you have content that's consumed again and again
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"World of" added to summary. (Score:5, Informative)
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The last hour will consist of them all entering a dungeon while they stand around whaling on a "boss" 300 times bigger than any of them, until he finally dies. The last five minutes is them bickering abou
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Not as good as you'll expect. (Score:5, Funny)
The movie will be 16 hours long and will chronicle the journey of Frank the warrior on his epic quest to gather seventeen moose heads from the moose spawning area. He makes it to level 12, setting the viewer up for the sequel, where he can finally buy new armour and eat the soft banana bread he was previously not battle hardened enough to eat.
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You laugh, but it takes a lot of confidence -- the kind that only comes with lots and lots of experience -- to stick something called a "mana strudel" in your mouth.
This is my epic [Boomstick]! (Score:2)
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Chris Metzen as co-producer (Score:5, Interesting)
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Not just WoW.. (Score:5, Informative)
Though a character named 'Leroy Jenkins' would be hilarious.
I hope they take a bit of creative liberty (Score:2)
Else we'll get to see something like this:
Young Grurk is a hunter of his tribe, and he's set out to conquer the world. He meets some old leader of his tribe who proceeds to tell Grurk his life story, giving the watcher of the show a chance to head back to the lobby to get himself some treats. Then Grurk heads out to collect a few apples, fishes or Murlocheads for his Elder. On his way, he meets the token cleric who has essentially been given the same task, but they both choose to ignore each other. Grurk fi
Suggested Tagline (Score:5, Funny)
"How does one kill that which has no life?"
P.
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Why watch it... (Score:2)
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Because we might end up with a bit less of "carry X to Y and bring back some Murlokfins", and a bit more of a heroic story?
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Legend of the Seeker (Score:2)
Raimi also produces the Legend of the Seeker [wikipedia.org] tv series. Make of THAT what you will!
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Two things:
1. 'Produces' (actually, co-produces) != has a strong hand in the art direction, storyline, acting, etc. thereof
2. I actually like this show. It's reminiscent of the old Hercules and Xena shows, though not quite as quirky. For a TV fantasy show it has a few things going for it: very accessible plot, attractive females, and respectable fight choreography to name a few.
Warcraft movie...not world of (Score:2)
Sam (Score:2)
Who's Sam Raimito?:D
I'll watch it for... (Score:2)
Leeeeeroy Jenkins! [youtube.com]
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Ted Raimi will play the part of Leroy Jenkins
Good movie based on a game IP (Score:2)
A good movie based on MMORPG game IP has already been made: Ben X [imdb.com] revolves around the game Archlord [archlordgame.com] and the real life of some players. Think Rainman meets WoW.
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Yeah, the Spider Man movies sucked so much they only made almost a Billion dollars EACH world-wide.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yeah, the Spider Man movies sucked so much they only made almost a Billion dollars EACH world-wide.
And as we all know, popularity is directly proportional to quality...
*Goes too look up American Idol stats on his Dell Windows-Based PC*
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why the guy that did spiderman?
You mean the guy that did Evil Dead?
Even the first Spiderman movie wasn't all that bad for a superheo movie, although he clearly didn't have the kind of freedom he had with Army Of Darkness.
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Or the TV series based on Super Mario and Zelda?
Hey! That cartoons series was pretty damn good if you ask me.
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However the budget-challenged, direct-to-video sequel to the D&D movie, although not a masterpiece of storytelling, actually managed to capture the feel and pace of playing an old-fashioned late-1st edition D&D game of high level (9th-10th level) characters. If they've continued churning out a series of films in that style, I would have happily bought them up.
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Seriously, the D&D player base has been a wreck for about two decades now. The D&D film may not have been high art but neither is D&D.
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Or the TV series based on Super Mario and Zelda?
Yeah...
WTF? The Zelda cartoon was aweseome.
Re:Blizzard has some experience (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Army of Darkness was closer to a Diablo movie than a WoW movie, if we have to stay in Blizzard's IP...
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It actually has very good story lines. Most of the larger stories are based on the Warcraft RTS games. There are many questlines which have their own unique stories and are definitely worth it.
I can never stand playing WoW for more than a month or two. After running through the content and storylines it gets quite boring and repetitive. The gameplay itself isn't compelling enough to stay and the PvP is a joke.
After vanilla WoW there was very little fun to be had in world PvP or in the world at large. Battli
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Re:I'm guessing... (Score:5, Funny)
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I wouldn't normally be terribly interested in a WoW movie, but if Sam Raimi does it, well, perhaps. It's certainly millions of times better than Uwe Boll or Michael Bay. Raimi knows how to make movies fun.
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