Warcraft: The Game: The Movie

So I hear they’re going to make a Warcraft movie now? Gee. How many billions does a game have to make these days before it’s despoiled and curb-stomped by Hollywood? I mean, we got how many Resident Evil flicks? Granted, I think those were merely the sins of an unjust world taking corporeal shape…

So here’s what we know, which, in the way of these things, could change at any moment. Sam Raimi is set to direct, which is perfect, really. Any man who can pull off the Evil Dead series can probably handle a fantasy world where half the characters wear horrible puns as names. He also seems to have a talent for “getting it” as the kids say, so maybe his version of Warcraft won’t be two hours of explosions set to a Linkin’ Park screamtrack.

Legendary Pictures are developing the film, and you might known them from a little softcore porn flick called 300. Good fit, I think.

Chris Metzen is on board, which is, if anything, extremely interesting. Sure, he wrote the Warcraft canon as it stands today, but that canon is a confusing, contradictory, sewn-flesh monster, shambling about on uneven legs and animated by daily doses of retcon and distorted history. I’m still bitter about what he did to Gul’dan in WoW canon. And Ner’zhul. And everyone with the Draenei. Unfortunately, there is no one better qualified to write about the Warcraft universe. Personally, I’d prefer if he just advised a team of more talented writers, but then where would the name recognition go?

Plotwise, the word on the street says the movie will be set before World of Warcraft proper, in the thin time of peace between the Horde and Alliance. It will be a story told through a human character, set mostly among the Alliance. To back this, up we got some nice concept art, like this picture of Teldrassil which you should click to embiggen.