Blizzcon, Day 2: Warcraft Film Panel
Hall A at the Anaheim Convention Center was filled to capacity by fans wanting to hear more about the upcoming live action Warcraft film from Legendary Pictures — the company behind 300, Batman Begins and Superman Returns — surprising even the speakers.
“Everyone would tell us ‘fantasy movies don’t work,'” Blizzard COO Paul Sams said, of their Hollywood meetings prior to the release of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And afterward, Hollywood executives all said “the bar has been set too high.
“We’re not looking to make a video game movie,” he said, “We want to make a big, epic movie.”
“I personally think sometimes, it’s dangerous to make a movie about a video game,” Legendary producer Thomas Tull said, citing the inevitable danger of not meeting fan expectations, especially when elements of the game are changed or expanded upon.
And despite the success of World of Warcraft, in movie terms, that’s not a figure that guarantees financial success.
“If every Warcraft player in the world bought a ticket, that’s still not enough,” Tull said. The film, which they hope to release in 2009, will need to bring in non-gamers, including those not being dragged there by a player, while still being true to the franchise. “There’s a reason over 9 million of you are so passionate about this, and we want to be true to that.”
They hope to have a trailer available “at the next Blizzcon.”
Blizzard’s senior creative guru, Chris Metzen, said the team had kicked around a number of different story possibilities, including one relating to the corruption of Medivh and the opening of the Dark Portal, but “in the end, most people know Warcraft from WoW.”
The script now taking shape takes place four years after Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne and a year before World of Warcraft, and incorporates a number of key events in the conflict specifically between orcs and humans and compresses them together a bit, to focus on that theme.
“You’re likely to see races you’ve played in lands that you know,” Metzen said. “It’s kind of a reimagining of recent events [similar to the reimagining in Batman Begins] … Why does it never end, this violence?”
The Alliance and Horde will notably not be teaming up at the end to fight a common enemy, as they did at the end of Warcraft III: The Reign of Chaos.
Notable Warcraft characters like Thrall and Jaina Proudmoore will appear. They have not yet decided whether or not the undead will have joined the Horde at that point.
“Any characters from before WoW that are in WoW that haven’t had their day in the sun” are also good bets to appear.
The protagonist of the picture, though, is new, “and he’s pretty badass,” Metzen said. The character, an Alliance answer to Thrall, is not the same new badass from the upcoming World of Warcraft comic from DC/Wildstorm.
The crew is still talking to directors, so no decisions have been made on actors yet, although they’ve received plenty of calls, including Superman actor Brandon Routh, who had begged Tull to set up a tour of Blizzard Entertainment headquarters in Irvine.
It’s far too soon to know what sort of rating the final film will receive, but “they’re not going to be hitting each other will pillows,” Tull said.
The film will be told from the perspective of the Alliance, an announcement that was met by boos.
“So,” Metzen said, nodding, “While my heart lies with the Horde, from a moviemaking perspective … it’s much easier to pick up the pace” without explaining who all these green people are, and why an audience should identify with them. “We want to focus on characters you can get immediately.”
The story will feature the fall of the human nation of Lordaeron as a prominent part of the story background.
The only piece from the film shown was a concept painting of the new world tree, Teldrassil, glowing with lights from buildings set along its outer trunk.
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