Slashdot Mirror


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?"

39 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. Wouldn't this movie... by sys.stdout.write · · Score: 5, Funny

    require WoW players to stop playing WoW?

    Can they even do that?

    1. Re:Wouldn't this movie... by Yvanhoe · · Score: 2, Funny

      As a non-WoW player, I have a more important question : will it be subtitled ?

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    2. Re:Wouldn't this movie... by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 3, 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).

    3. Re:Wouldn't this movie... by tiocsti · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Sure, any wow player can take a few hours out of their tuesday morning to watch the movie, as long as it doesn't extend past 11am pst, there's no problem.

  2. ... Film from a game... by GerardAtJob · · 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...

    --
    I can't call that English ;-)
    1. Re:... Film from a game... by funwithBSD · · Score: 4, 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!

      --
      Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
    2. Re:... Film from a game... by Ukab+the+Great · · 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.

    3. Re:... Film from a game... by eldavojohn · · 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?

      --
      My work here is dung.
    4. Re:... Film from a game... by vertinox · · Score: 4, 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.

      --
      "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
      -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
    5. Re:... Film from a game... by samriel · · 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

    6. Re:... Film from a game... by bitslinger_42 · · Score: 4, 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.

    7. Re:... Film from a game... by geminidomino · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "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.

    8. Re:... Film from a game... by Binary+Boy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    9. Re:... Film from a game... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, 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].

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    10. Re:... Film from a game... by Phyvo · · 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.

    11. Re:... Film from a game... by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 2, Informative

      That is what they're doing. Blizzard has only ever referred to this movie as the "Warcraft movie". It's the fans who have misconstrued that as meaning it's based on the game WoW.

      --
      "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
    12. Re:... Film from a game... by Reivec · · Score: 2, Informative

      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

      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 people can take part over and over again but the STORY is not static. They tried to remedy some of this in the last xpac by using phased zones where different players see different things depending on what quests they have completed.

  3. Repeat by CopaceticOpus · · Score: 5, Funny

    For the real WoW experience, buy it on DVD and watch it a few hundred times.

    1. Re:Repeat by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

  4. "World of" added to summary. by dreemernj · · Score: 4, Informative

    The press release doesn't mention a "World of Warcraft" movie, just a "Warcraft" movie. Perhaps this will be geared towards the more linear storyline of the RTS games?

    --
    1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
  5. Yellow Oldsmobile by OglinTatas · · Score: 2, 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.

  6. Re:Edit: by cabjf · · Score: 2, Funny

    They better at least include Chuck Norris, after having to hear so much about him in-game.

  7. Not as good as you'll expect. by Sj0 · · 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.

    --
    It's been a long time.
    1. Re:Not as good as you'll expect. by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2, Funny

      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.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
  8. Chris Metzen as co-producer by Quince+alPillan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  9. Not just WoW.. by murphyd311 · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's just titled Warcraft. Remember those RTS games and books? I'll pretend it's based on those instead of WoW.

    Though a character named 'Leroy Jenkins' would be hilarious.

  10. Suggested Tagline by __aamkky7574 · · Score: 4, Funny

    "How does one kill that which has no life?"

    P.

  11. Re:Hmm... by Fractal+Dice · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  12. Re:Blizzard has some experience by Opportunist · · Score: 4, 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.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  13. Re:Dear Hollywood: DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL! by navygeek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Good luck seeing any movies in the next...ever. I'm not even trying to be cynical. It's a simple fact that everything is a rehash of something else. A good portion of the original Star Trek episodes were takes of various Shakespeare plays. The original Battlestar Galactica was mostly re-tellings of various movie plot lines. 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. Now, take that with a grain of salt, as I have no links to support that claim.

  14. Re:Hmm... by Niris · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So we're judging quality by how much money is gained through effective marketing now? That's lovely. By your logic, Star Wars Episode 1 was _amazing_!

  15. Re:Dear Hollywood: DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL! by geminidomino · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  16. Re:This is not going to go well... by nahdude812 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    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 by various and even the same players. However the Warcraft universe is not static.

    Especially if you play through the Warcraft III original and expansion games, you'll discover that Blizzard actually has a real talent for telling a story. They even go so far as to kill or dramatically change major characters. Watch the progression of Arthas from human paladin to undead lieutenant to rogue undead eventually to becoming the Lich King. See how they killed Grom Helscream in an epic battle, or how they killed Sylvanas Windrunner and brought her back as Lady Sylvanas, queen of the rogue undead.

    Blizzard has an extremely rich lore in the Warcraft universe, and this is fertile ground for a movie or even a series of movies. They've already demonstrated their cinematic prowess and story writing abilities in the in-game and pre-rendered cutscenes in Warcraft III and Diablo II. There's no particular reason to think they would do worse than that with a bigger budget associated with a movie.

    A movie based on World of Warcraft would be crap. A movie based on Warcraft though, that has real promise.

  17. Re:I'm guessing... by CorporateSuit · · Score: 4, Funny

    This just gave me an idea for a screen saver. It shows your wow character farming gold. Sometimes, a few horde [alliance] guys jump out and kill your character, and you get to watch it make a spirit run back. Sometimes, some other farmer will train a bunch of mobs onto you. Sometimes you'll miss 32 hits in a row (Warriors only) while poisoned. Sometimes, you will also get guild chat talking about faked moon landings, religion, their current middle school experiences, how much weed/beer they just smoked/drank, and you'll get a pre-pubescent guild leader shouting at everyone over vent. I will charge $60 a year to run it on your computer. It will be everything the real WoW experience gives, except cheaper!

    --
    I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
  18. Re:If you make a movie by mcvos · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  19. Re:Hmm... by linzeal · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  20. Re:Dear Hollywood: DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL! by khellendros1984 · · Score: 3, Informative

    1. Rags to Riches
    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.

    --
    It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
  21. Re:If you make a movie by Chabo · · Score: 3, Funny

    Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This... is my boomstick! The twelve-gauge double-barreled Remington. S-Mart's top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That's right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about a hundred and nine, ninety five. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That's right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?

    --
    Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
  22. Re:Dear Hollywood: DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL! by OglinTatas · · Score: 3, 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.