It’s not unusual these days for websites that cover comic books to have a fair amount of movie-related material that they generate, but it’s less common for gaming sites. I guess we’re going to have to get used to that, though, as more and more of the big giant gaming properties start to get adapted and studios try to handle publicity in different ways. I don’t mind going to Comic-Con to cover movie news for you guys, but for the next few years, are we also going to have to adapt to going to BlizzCon as well?
Over at Kotaku, one of my favorite gaming blogs, they were covering BlizzCon anyway, and they ended up putting together a pretty great overview of what we might expect from “Warcraft” when Legendary Pictures and Universal release the film in 2015.
Duncan Jones is directing the movie, and I’m eager to see him working on a big canvass. He’s a smart director with a strong visual sensibility and an FX-oriented background, and more importantly, he’s someone who genuinely loves gaming and that culture and who seems to want to do right by the property he’s adapting. At this point, you can’t really ask more.
It sounds like Blizzard knows that they’ve got very demanding fans to try and appease, and just wading into the entire world of what they’ve created left me dizzy. Evidently, the most widely-known iteration of the game is “World Of Warcraft,” the online MMORPG version, but that is not necessarily the most-loved by longtime fans. The earlier games, entitled simply “Warcraft,” “Warcraft 2,” and “Warcraft 3,” seem to be the ones that inspire the greatest affection, and to the great delight of many of those same fans, it appears that those games are going to be the source material drawn on most fervently by the filmmakers.
In addition to discussing plot points, Jones also revealed several pieces of early pre-production art to give fans a taste of the world that they’re going to see onscreen. You should check out Kotaku’s report for some great details, and here’s hoping Legendary continues to be this open with material as they embark on what could well be one of their biggest productions so far.
“Warcraft” will be in theaters December 18, 2015.