Director Duncan Jones gives gamers an exclusive first look at the ‘Warcraft’ movie trailer at BlizzCon on Friday (November 6)
The film which stars Ben Foster, Paula Patton, Toby Kebbell and Clancy Brown is based on the popular ‘World of Warcraft’ franchise.
Made up of five core games the fantastical lands of humans and orcs has a devoted following and dedicated community.
And while some may be concerned if the gaming giant can pull off the screen adaptation many feel confident that the project is in the right hands.
“Hopefully it will turn out good, it looks like they really put a lot of effort into it, the one thing is when it comes to video games these (films) are done by people that don’t really know the source material or they’re not really looking to be, or they don’t really know what the game is and they’re just kinda making a quick buck and the Warcraft movie is made by the people who know the world so it seems like they know what they’re doing so I think there’s a lot of heart in it so hopefully it will be pretty good,” 10-year World of Warcraft veteran, Amber Beck said.
Game designer and Blizzard senior vice president Christopher Metzen is aware of the risks.
“It’s kind of risky right? Why would you risk doing a film? The game has been really loved for a long time by the Warcraft player base and I think we at Blizzard still don’t quite get our head around how sacred that is but we just had this instinct that all along we just wanted to share this story that this world of Warcraft with everyone around the world,” Metzen said.
Filmmaking liberties were only took if they improve the cinematic version of the story and according to director Duncan Jones promises the film stay to the the spirit of the story.
“Where it a little rough or where it doesn’t quite match up or where it really hurts our ability to tell our story how can we shape things and smooth things over and still be true to the spirit of what the story is,” Jones said at a Q&A following the unveiling of the film’s trailer.
For those new to the Warcraft universe the film does not have a clear good guys and bad guys cast
“It’s essentially orcs versus humans which is precisely what the movie is going to be and at both sides are completely, they are justified, it is not monsters versus humanity just orcs who are their own civilization so you get to rally behind a single side not just the good side,” Owen Lord told Reuters.
Two-time BlizzCon attendee, Gretchen Deuel, compared the game to Lord of the Rings or Star Wars.
“I mean you have an overlap between people that love Warcraft are still going to be people that love Lord of the Rings or they love Star Wars, it’s about heroes from different paths in life. They’re all fighting for what they think is good and the way that the lore has moved it’s become these two factions that are moving against evil forces,” Deuel said.
However, Metzen sees the opportunity to take the game to the big screen as an opportunity to write a few wrong made in the warcraft fabric.
“We made some really weird decisions with the lore over time, things I wish I could take back, very proud of but in a way retelling this story again in Duncan’s deft hands it was an opportunity for redemption, conceptual redemption. It is totally the Warcraft one that everyone remembers but it is better, tighter, smarter, it is a much better version of the tale and we are super proud of it,” Metzen said.
Activision Blizzard Inc also announced the launch of a film and TV studio to create original content based on its popular videogame franchises such as “Call of Duty” and “Hearthstone” in its latest push to expand beyond console-based games.
Activision Blizzard Studios’ first production will be “Skylanders Academy,” an animated TV series based on the company’s toys-to-life videogame “Skylanders”, the company said in a statement.
A “near-term” project for the videogame maker’s film and TV studio will be to develop a movie franchise based on the hugely successful military first-person shooter “Call of Duty”.
The company also said it would also consider adapting the franchise for TV.
The Activision/Blizzard Entertainment and Legendary Pictures Warcraft theater release is slated for 2016.
