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Legendary Pictures’ World of Warcraft movie must stand on its own as a great film, not simply appeal to the franchise’s dwindling audience, producer and Legendary chief Thomas Tull has said.
This is how the team behind the project hopes to avoid the usual trappings of making a video game movie which sucks.
“I think, as a gamer myself, a lot of times what has happened in the past is, studios have said, ‘How many people play that game? Okay, then that means they’ll probably all go and buy tickets.’ That is an incredibly poor way to make a movie,” explained Tull.
He continued: “So for us, it’s [like], We don’t know how to make a movie out of Warcraft, the video game. [Instead], it’s the incredible story, and the war, and these races, and everything these guys at Blizzard [Entertainment] have come up with. They have 100 books, and just this incredibly rich world that they’ve created.”
Duncan Jones of Moon and Source Code fame is helming the movie.
“Having Duncan Jones realize that for us was exciting,” explained Tull. “We’ve also taken our time, because we absolutely don’t want to screw it up. And I think we’re getting close to a place [where] we’re ready to go. And when the script is finished, and when we feel like, ‘Forget whether or not there’s a built-in audience. Does this stand on its own, and is it great?’ Then we’ll start filming.
“We’re not quite there yet, but we’re under suspicion of going there. And Duncan is one of those directors that you just [say], ‘This guy gets it.’
“The next two years are going to be pretty exciting, I think.”
Production is rumoured to start in 2014.
Let’s hope the project does enter full production soon. Remember that Sam Raimi had been on board to direct, but quit after discovering Blizzard has “veto power” on the script. If that’s true, what’s to say the same thing won’t happen again?
Source: io9
