Home Gaming Legendary Pictures doesn’t know how to make a movie out of Warcraft

Legendary Pictures doesn’t know how to make a movie out of Warcraft

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Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull has admitted that the studio doesn’t know how to make a movie out of World of Warcraft. If they’re going to have any shot at success with the film adaptation of the game, that is a good place to start.

In an interview with Slashfilm, Tull explains that certain assumptions when it comes to video game movies are what make video game movies so bad.

“A lot of times what has happened in the past is, studios have said, ‘How many people play that game? Okay, thean that means they’ll probably all go out and buy tickets.’ That is an incredibly poor way to make a movie.”

According to Tull, you start off with the question “How do you make a video game movie that doesn’t suck?”. He thinks the key could be to base the film on the world of the game, instead of the game itself.

“So for us, it’s that we don’t know how to make a movie out of Warcraft, the video game. It’s the incredible story, the war, and these races, and everything these guys at Blizzard have come up with. They have 100 books, and just this incredibly rich world that they’ve created.”

But isn’t that the point? As a huge fan of the story of World of Warcraft I can only imagine that the game itself will have very little to add to the movie. Sure, key locations might be used, but as for the rest? Surely that’s to come from the books? It will be a crying shame if this film is a failure, because the stories written behind the game are movie material through and through.

The biggest question here is when is this film going to arrive? The film adaptation has been in the works for almost seven years, since the announcement at E3 in 2006. According to Tull, the probability for release is much greater for 2016, than 2014. The film is said to have a budget bigger than $100 million. Surely if they can’t spend the money in such a way that the film will blow our minds, then there’s no hope for the human race.

Last Updated: July 5, 2013

20 Comments

  1. Captain Minion TallTwit

    July 5, 2013 at 07:45

    I love the lore behind the Warcraft universe, so it would be a crying shame if this movie is a commercial flop.

    Reply

    • Pixel_ninja

      July 5, 2013 at 08:11

      They should take a feather from Game of thrones’ cap, and make the movie a multi threaded narrative of each of the various factions.

      Reply

      • Sir Twakkus

        July 5, 2013 at 08:31

        Brilliant Idea. They could even only focus on one faction per movie. Otherwise the movie might be a bit deurmekaar.

        Reply

      • Naudran

        July 5, 2013 at 10:16

        The reason why the series is a multi threaded narrative is because the books are written as such. They are just following the same formula as the books

        Reply

    • Tarisma

      July 5, 2013 at 09:06

      Ya jut hope some cubit doesn’t get hold of it and give us another price of Persia

      Reply

  2. Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

    July 5, 2013 at 07:56

    Good luck. Trying to make good movie adaptations of any game is extremely tough. But who knows, maybe they can pull it off?

    Reply

  3. Gareth L

    July 5, 2013 at 07:57

    There’s far too much lore and heroes in the whole WarCraft “story” to fit it comfortably into three movies. It’d best be treated like Game of Thrones and run for maybe three seasons instead.

    Reply

    • Captain Minion TallTwit

      July 5, 2013 at 08:11

      I agree on the ‘series’ idea.

      Reply

  4. Trevor Davies

    July 5, 2013 at 08:11

    Give this man a Bells. He’s figured out they don’t have to recreate the game story in the movie. You have a crapload of lore, locations & characters to build on – all you need is a NEW story.

    Reply

  5. Carlyle Fife

    July 5, 2013 at 08:17

    Star Craft Movie would BE better

    Reply

    • Ultimo_Cleric N7

      July 5, 2013 at 08:51

      Upvote for days

      Reply

  6. Wtf101

    July 5, 2013 at 08:41

    It will not be a world of warcraft movie if they do not show the hero slaughtering 100 wild boars to get 10 livers.

    Reply

    • Captain Minion TallTwit

      July 5, 2013 at 09:33

      HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      Reply

    • Guest102

      July 5, 2013 at 09:39

      Classic!

      Reply

  7. OminousRain

    July 5, 2013 at 08:47

    Why not use the story of Warcraft III. Its one we all now and love

    Reply

  8. Ultimo_Cleric N7

    July 5, 2013 at 08:51

    Reckon the Warcraft 3 plot would work well for a movie.

    Reply

  9. Natty Dave

    July 5, 2013 at 09:09

    world of world of warcraft http://youtu.be/Rw8gE3lnpLQ. but really, if you have time to watch movies, you have time to pvp

    Reply

  10. Devon Stanton

    July 5, 2013 at 09:18

    There will be a trilogy

    Reply

  11. Kromas

    July 5, 2013 at 11:13

    If they leave Jaina or Thrall out of this Ill be rather annoyed.

    Reply

  12. Niel Coetzee

    July 6, 2013 at 10:48

    The biggest problem with a Warcraft film is the stylised world we’re all used. The entire story is driven by its environment and overall gestalt. This means that without portraying this world correctly the story will fall flat especially in the eyes of fans of the games and the lore.

    This also means that the only way to do this is by staying true to the rendered cinematic trailers we’re used to from blizzard, and those takes months of hard work to create only a few seconds of trailer.

    That would end up being much too expensive to justify as a commercial film, even with a projected 20M ticket sales, that translates to about $200M, coupled with a budget of only $100M which is kind of flimsy for a massive animated film.

    I’ve always doubted a film adaptation of the Warcraft world, but this feels like a nail in the coffin…

    Reply

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