A movie based on the super-popular MMO World of Warcraft was first announced way back in 2006, to be created by Blizzard in partnership with Hollywood studio Legendary Pictures, but very little has been heard of it since then.
That all changed this weekend, as the movie’s release date and elements of its plot were talked about at Blizzard’s annual Blizzcon conference, to the delight of fans everywhere. Its will simply be called Warcraft, and the official release date will be December 18, 2015, the exact same date as the release of the next Star Wars movie. December 18 should probably be declared a once-off international public holiday, considering the high probability of widespread absenteeism on the day.
The movie is scheduled to begin shooting in early 2014, and will be directed by Duncan Jones of 2009’s Moon and 2011’s Source Code fame. It will be an origin story, apparently, focusing on the first contact between the franchise’s two main races, orcs and humans, and will be set in some of the world’s more well-known locations like Draenor, Dalaran, Ironforge and Stormwind.
At the movie’s discussion panel Jones explained that the movie will feature ‘The biggest swords a human can wield’, and that it will be a combination of live-action footage and CGI, much like 2009’s Avatar and 2011’s TinTin movie. He added that while the movie will likely have a PG-13 rating, it will have a similarly gritty tone to that of 2000’s Gladiator.
So who’s excited? Me, I would have preferred it if they’d chosen a more high-profile director, but then a lot of Blizzard’s creative people are involved in the script and their cinematic standards are incredible high if their game movies are anything to go by, so the end result should be pretty nice to look at.
