BlizzCon 07: World of Warcraft - The Movie... First Details!
By Chienne - Sun Aug 5, 2007 5:22am
Right now at BlizzCon, there is a Q&A session about the upcoming World of WarCraft movie.
While the phonecall live from Anaheim was too crackly to make out many details, I can confirm that it'll be live-action, and will be set just before the events that start World of WarCraft.
More details as they come in - refresh this post for updates - and in the meantime, check out the photos that UgLyPuNk and Ignant have been taking in LA!
L-R:
Jon Jashni, Chief Creative Officer, Legendary Pictures
Thomas Tull, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Legendary Pictures
Chris Metzen, Vice President of Creative Development, Blizzard Entertainment
Paul Sams, Chief Operating Officer, Blizzard Entertainment
To open, Paul Sams explained that for almost five years, Blizzard have been trying to get Hollywood interested in their films. They were consistently been knocked back because "fantasy movies don't work", and then a little film called Lord of the Rings came out, followed by two very successful sequels.
Blizzard: "There it is! C'mon! Bam!"
Hollywood: "Well, no, you can't do that, that's going to be too tough, the bar's too high now."
They've been working with Jon Jashni for a while now with the idea of him eventually producing the film. At the last BlizzCon in 2005, he sat down with Blizzard and gave them the big news that he was going to join Legendary Pictures - "I think we've finally found the Hollywood home for Blizzard's properties".
So a meeting was set up. Instead of making the "little game guys" go up to Hollywood, Legendary made the trek down to Blizzard's Irvine studios themselves - a 4 hour drive with their entire management team - which is a pretty big gesture. "The moment we met them, we knew they were The One." ...it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Thomas Tull himself then explained that it is very dangerous to make a movie out of a video game because people focus so much on sales figures and assume that software purchases translate to ticket sales, which is not always the case. Even if every WarCraft / WoW fan buys a ticket, that's not enough. The film has to not only speak to the fanbase - but also be a great standalone movie that the rest of the world can enjoy.
To put "great standalone movie" into context - Legendary worked on 300 earlier this year, which was based on a graphic novel, which is a similar situation, and also did Batman Begins (sequel coming out "next Summer", by the way).
"This is going to be a big film." It's very important to Legendary, so they're going to pile resources into the film and not make it some cheesy... "I won't give examples" (although the crowd offered some muffled opinions at that point - did I hear a yell of "Doom", perhaps?).
Thomas says at this stage, they're aiming for a 2009 release with a $100 million budget, and they already have a script that they're pretty excited about. "Putting movies together is hard... You don't just slap things together and put them out there."
A cross between 300 / Braveheart - not in terms of style, but impact - something with real 'heft'. The holy grail is, obviously, Lord of the Rings and what Tolkein did. What drew Legendary to WarCraft is the mythology, the characters, the races - the depth of the history and backstory behind the game... not to mention the "kickass battles".
Chris Metzen discussed some of the ways the movie might pan out:
"If you're doing Harry Potter... if it's a series of books... something that's serial, you pretty much take the first chapter and make movies based on how it plays out, in terms of the product it was based on."
"Wouldn't it be cool to just focus on WarCraft I? Evil orcs, humans, Medivh and Khadgar as the sort of soul of the story..." but ultimately the WarCraft I story is only that - and we've seen that story before.
At the end of the day, most people know WarCraft from WoW.
The plot has to be kept relevant to WoW players, rather than delving too far into the backstory. The story that they're running with at this point starts about a year before WoW begins, so it's very much "recent", compared to the thousand-year history of WarCraft universe, and features elements that will be familiar to those people who never played WarCraft before the creation of WoW.
The story itself has a number of recent plot points, woven together into a really strong 2 - 2 1/2 hr movie. To answer people's concerns about continuity, or over when the film starts, it's being approached like X-Men or Batman Begins - a sequence of events - a sort of re-imagining of recent plot points, and all feels a lot like WarCraft. Thematically it's about cultures in conflict on this world - why does it never end? What do they stand to gain from this constant fighting?
Can't say too much at this stage, but Thrall is likely to make an appearance, as is Daelin Proudmoore. Characters that have been created specifically for WoW and may not have had as much attention in the past may show up as well - Bolvar Fordragon's name was mentioned, and they're trying to weave Cairne Bloodhoof into the story. The problem, of course, is trying to make sure everyone fits, and not just including characters for the sake of including them.
A new hero has been constructed - "He's pretty badass, he's going to womp a lot of heads together over the course of this thing..."
Q&A Highlights
"A lot of the heroes from WoW and previous WarCraft titles will be included - what about classes from WoW?"
While they're still in the scripting process, yes - the classes will be involved, but they're not sure how yet. They're trying to add as many familiar elements as possible, to create a "Hey, I know that!" feeling.
"Is it liveaction or animated?"
Liveaction! (crowd goes wild)
"Any ideas on directors? We want a good one."
Currently looking for someone who "gets it" - just like they found Zack Snyder for 300 and Christopher Nolan for Batman Begins. Ideally they'd find someone who can be mentioned in the same sentence as those great names.
(crowd: "Uwe Boll!")
"What about actors?"
No shortage of people enquiring, but casting generally comes after they find a director, so it's still a little while off.
"Discussions of the WoW Comic Book have mentioned the introduction of "a new badass character" - sort of the Thrall of the Alliance. The film is now mentioning "a new badass character" - is it the same guy?"
...they could be twins! *pause* But no, it's not the same guy.
"I've played both Horde and Alliance, and as Horde you feel that you are good also (despite being the 'baddies'). Will the film continue the idea that Horde is 'evil' and Alliance is 'good'?"
Good question... that idea is sort of central to everything WarCraft is about, so it will definitely be explored in the film.
"This is going to be an epic movie... will it be the sort of thing I can take my kids to, or will it be full of blood and gore and violence and slapped with an R rating?"
(crowd: "Aarrrrrrrr!!")
It's difficult to predict what the ratings board people will do. Legendary don't want to compromise on the story, but they still want people to be able to see the thing. Lord of the Rings was PG-rated, and that had "the right amount of intensity" - but other PG-rated films have been lacking. Basically it's too early to tell, but they're not intending to release the "G-rated" watered down version. "It's WarCraft - it's not PillowfightCraft!"
"Will the story be a group of people travelling through the lands, or will it be an epic battle of various races to find the one dominant one, or..."
Basically - it's not a great adventure or a quest like LotR. It's more of... a war movie, so it's more about huge powers and things building up to one point before it spills over in conflict.
"What races will be represented? Specifically - the Undead?"
Not as simple an answer as you'd think. Given the timeline of the movie, it's unsure if it's set before or after the Foresaken have joined the Horde, so it's all a bit up in the air. There's the option of having many characters and races having cameos or background parts while keeping the principal cast relatively small - "in the first one, anyway".
(crowd cheers)
"Will the movie likely be themed more toward Alliance or Horde?"
It will principally be told from the Alliance perspective...
(crowd cheers and boos simultaneously)
...so while my heart lies with the Horde...
(crowd boos and cheers simultaneously)
...it would be pretty difficult to create an unbiased story - or focus it on Thrall, who is a crazy green dude...
(crowd: "What about Shrek?")
At this stage, they're throwing around names - 300, Braveheart, Gladiator - with the sort of feeling and emotion that the developers are after, creating characters that are deeper and more complex, and not just a gimmick...
"There is a lot of WarCraft history - you've said this is set just before WoW - in future, would you consider revisiting further back in history? Maybe to the time of Arthas Menethil?"
Definitely interested, there's some great storylines in the history. Right now though, they're concentrating on the first movie - "Gotta get the first one right" - before thinking about future directions the films might take.
"Even though they've been rivals in the past - will Alliance + Horde join allegiances to fight against a common enemy in these films, or will it just be conflict between the two?"
At this stage, the Horde / Alliance conflict is the heart of the WarCraft series, so the film will definitely focus on that.
"Video game movies have a pretty bad track record - I believe that's at least partially to do with departing from the classic storylines and characters. You seem to be departing from the main storyline to take care of a sort of interim period... so I'm worried that because you're leaving tried-and-true characters and moving away from the storyline, that the movie may suffer."
If you try to build a movie franchise based on each of the game products, it gets a little clumsy. There's a 20 year gap between WarCraft II and III (is that a little StarWars-ish? We didn't plan that.) ...it's not based on any one specific game, it's got two or three recent components of recent games, drawn together. It's a little bit apart from the continuity, but not radically. They're working very hard to be as respectful as possible, trying to make it fit in with the games and not screw up the storyline. Basically - it's trying to present the perfect story, the best little soundbite from WarCraft for people who don't know about the history.
Essentially using characters, history, elements of the world - extrapolating it and putting it in a movie. If you're too rigid, too stuck to "what was in the game", then it won't necessarily translate to film - something that's cool for 5 minutes may not carry over to 2 hours.
"Are you planning on keeping some of the tongue-in-cheek humour from the games?"
Yes. Humour is critical to what WarCraft is - even in WoW, with the world as big as it is, there's a lot of over-the-top zany stuff, situational humour, bad jokes - wacky humour. It's something that people have come to expect from the games, so while we're still trying to figure out how it'll all fit, we're definitely going to make sure that the "WarCraft Humour" comes through.
"Will you focus on some of the same elements that Lord of the Rings did - makeup and costumes and practical effects - lots of real people fighting lots of real other people - or will you instead go with Blizzard's CG that you already have on hand - or will you just go for a blend of the two... or is that the director's call?"
Having the film grounded and feeling real - not like a dream sequence, say - is important. Every day the technology keeps getting better and better which will make the film look less cheesy than they did 10 years ago - but ultimately the director has a lot of say in the matter. 300 opened a lot of doors, and may have created some interesting ways of creating the WarCraft cinematics, with its super-vibrant colours and imagery that could never happen in real life. Digital world-building offers some very cool possibilities - now it's a case of waiting for a director with a vision to pull it all together.
"Behind the $100mil budget restrictions - are you considering approaching bigname actors, or instead looking for fresh faces?"
There are certain movies that "need" a big actor for the film to work - WarCraft doesn't need that.
Tangent... while working on Superman Returns, Brandon Routh who played young Superman was on a plane going somewhere with with Legendary and overheard part of a phone conversation with Blizzard about the upcoming movie.
Brandon grabbed my arm - this is the guy who's about to be Superman - and he was like "Wait a minute, do you know the WarCraft guys? Could you get me a tour of the WarCraft thing?" ...which we did. I don't think there'll be any shortage of actors wanting to be involved with this.
"Are there any plans to include input from Blizzard's art department into the workings of the film?"
At this time, everyone's busily working on the games stuff - but that's setting the precedent for the movie, it's a massive inspiration. We'll know more as time progresses.
"Are you interested in including Arthas in the storyline? References to the fall of Lordaeron or Silvermoon?"
This film probably doesn't focus on his storyline, but references to the fall of Lordaeron and other recent history that has only just taken place will probably be prevalent.
"...for the role of Thrall, are you planning on casting Borat?"
Um... he wasn't our first thought... maybe that guy he fought...
To close, here, have a picture of a storyboard. It's not a screenshot or specifically from the movie, but it's still nice.
That is an artist's impression of Teldrassil - the massive tree off the coast of Kalimdor, that may or may not make an appearance in the movie
Looks like this is finally happening - and with a 2009 estimated date, we should see news start trickling in fairly soon.
While the phonecall live from Anaheim was too crackly to make out many details, I can confirm that it'll be live-action, and will be set just before the events that start World of WarCraft.
More details as they come in - refresh this post for updates - and in the meantime, check out the photos that UgLyPuNk and Ignant have been taking in LA!
)
L-R:
Jon Jashni, Chief Creative Officer, Legendary Pictures
Thomas Tull, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Legendary Pictures
Chris Metzen, Vice President of Creative Development, Blizzard Entertainment
Paul Sams, Chief Operating Officer, Blizzard Entertainment
To open, Paul Sams explained that for almost five years, Blizzard have been trying to get Hollywood interested in their films. They were consistently been knocked back because "fantasy movies don't work", and then a little film called Lord of the Rings came out, followed by two very successful sequels.
) Paul Sams |
Hollywood: "Well, no, you can't do that, that's going to be too tough, the bar's too high now."
They've been working with Jon Jashni for a while now with the idea of him eventually producing the film. At the last BlizzCon in 2005, he sat down with Blizzard and gave them the big news that he was going to join Legendary Pictures - "I think we've finally found the Hollywood home for Blizzard's properties".
So a meeting was set up. Instead of making the "little game guys" go up to Hollywood, Legendary made the trek down to Blizzard's Irvine studios themselves - a 4 hour drive with their entire management team - which is a pretty big gesture. "The moment we met them, we knew they were The One." ...it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
"I don't want to make a videogame movie. I want to make a great movie - one that is going to be one of our Top Fives. We are not looking to create another videogame movie, we're looking to create a great, big, epic movie that we all will remember. It just happens to be based on - inspired by - a universe which we all know and love, which is WarCraft." - Paul Sams retelling a sentiment held by Thomas Tull.
) Thomas Tull |
Thomas Tull himself then explained that it is very dangerous to make a movie out of a video game because people focus so much on sales figures and assume that software purchases translate to ticket sales, which is not always the case. Even if every WarCraft / WoW fan buys a ticket, that's not enough. The film has to not only speak to the fanbase - but also be a great standalone movie that the rest of the world can enjoy.
To put "great standalone movie" into context - Legendary worked on 300 earlier this year, which was based on a graphic novel, which is a similar situation, and also did Batman Begins (sequel coming out "next Summer", by the way).
"This is going to be a big film." It's very important to Legendary, so they're going to pile resources into the film and not make it some cheesy... "I won't give examples" (although the crowd offered some muffled opinions at that point - did I hear a yell of "Doom", perhaps?).
Thomas says at this stage, they're aiming for a 2009 release with a $100 million budget, and they already have a script that they're pretty excited about. "Putting movies together is hard... You don't just slap things together and put them out there."
A cross between 300 / Braveheart - not in terms of style, but impact - something with real 'heft'. The holy grail is, obviously, Lord of the Rings and what Tolkein did. What drew Legendary to WarCraft is the mythology, the characters, the races - the depth of the history and backstory behind the game... not to mention the "kickass battles".
"This movie's very, very important to us.
There's a reason there are over 9 million of you now who are so passionate about this game, and we want to be true to that - so believe me, we pay attention, and my hope is that the next time you guys all get together in the not-too-distant future, that there's a movie that's come together, there's a trailer, and we can put something together that you guys enjoy, and that's worthy of the WarCraft name."
) Chris Metzen |
"If you're doing Harry Potter... if it's a series of books... something that's serial, you pretty much take the first chapter and make movies based on how it plays out, in terms of the product it was based on."
"Wouldn't it be cool to just focus on WarCraft I? Evil orcs, humans, Medivh and Khadgar as the sort of soul of the story..." but ultimately the WarCraft I story is only that - and we've seen that story before.
At the end of the day, most people know WarCraft from WoW.
The plot has to be kept relevant to WoW players, rather than delving too far into the backstory. The story that they're running with at this point starts about a year before WoW begins, so it's very much "recent", compared to the thousand-year history of WarCraft universe, and features elements that will be familiar to those people who never played WarCraft before the creation of WoW.
The story itself has a number of recent plot points, woven together into a really strong 2 - 2 1/2 hr movie. To answer people's concerns about continuity, or over when the film starts, it's being approached like X-Men or Batman Begins - a sequence of events - a sort of re-imagining of recent plot points, and all feels a lot like WarCraft. Thematically it's about cultures in conflict on this world - why does it never end? What do they stand to gain from this constant fighting?
Can't say too much at this stage, but Thrall is likely to make an appearance, as is Daelin Proudmoore. Characters that have been created specifically for WoW and may not have had as much attention in the past may show up as well - Bolvar Fordragon's name was mentioned, and they're trying to weave Cairne Bloodhoof into the story. The problem, of course, is trying to make sure everyone fits, and not just including characters for the sake of including them.
A new hero has been constructed - "He's pretty badass, he's going to womp a lot of heads together over the course of this thing..."
Q&A Highlights
) Jon Jashni |
While they're still in the scripting process, yes - the classes will be involved, but they're not sure how yet. They're trying to add as many familiar elements as possible, to create a "Hey, I know that!" feeling.
"Is it liveaction or animated?"
Liveaction! (crowd goes wild)
"Any ideas on directors? We want a good one."
Currently looking for someone who "gets it" - just like they found Zack Snyder for 300 and Christopher Nolan for Batman Begins. Ideally they'd find someone who can be mentioned in the same sentence as those great names.
(crowd: "Uwe Boll!")
"What about actors?"
No shortage of people enquiring, but casting generally comes after they find a director, so it's still a little while off.
"Discussions of the WoW Comic Book have mentioned the introduction of "a new badass character" - sort of the Thrall of the Alliance. The film is now mentioning "a new badass character" - is it the same guy?"
...they could be twins! *pause* But no, it's not the same guy.
"I've played both Horde and Alliance, and as Horde you feel that you are good also (despite being the 'baddies'). Will the film continue the idea that Horde is 'evil' and Alliance is 'good'?"
Good question... that idea is sort of central to everything WarCraft is about, so it will definitely be explored in the film.
"This is going to be an epic movie... will it be the sort of thing I can take my kids to, or will it be full of blood and gore and violence and slapped with an R rating?"
(crowd: "Aarrrrrrrr!!")
It's difficult to predict what the ratings board people will do. Legendary don't want to compromise on the story, but they still want people to be able to see the thing. Lord of the Rings was PG-rated, and that had "the right amount of intensity" - but other PG-rated films have been lacking. Basically it's too early to tell, but they're not intending to release the "G-rated" watered down version. "It's WarCraft - it's not PillowfightCraft!"
"Will the story be a group of people travelling through the lands, or will it be an epic battle of various races to find the one dominant one, or..."
Basically - it's not a great adventure or a quest like LotR. It's more of... a war movie, so it's more about huge powers and things building up to one point before it spills over in conflict.
"What races will be represented? Specifically - the Undead?"
Not as simple an answer as you'd think. Given the timeline of the movie, it's unsure if it's set before or after the Foresaken have joined the Horde, so it's all a bit up in the air. There's the option of having many characters and races having cameos or background parts while keeping the principal cast relatively small - "in the first one, anyway".
(crowd cheers)
"Will the movie likely be themed more toward Alliance or Horde?"
It will principally be told from the Alliance perspective...
(crowd cheers and boos simultaneously)
...so while my heart lies with the Horde...
(crowd boos and cheers simultaneously)
...it would be pretty difficult to create an unbiased story - or focus it on Thrall, who is a crazy green dude...
(crowd: "What about Shrek?")
At this stage, they're throwing around names - 300, Braveheart, Gladiator - with the sort of feeling and emotion that the developers are after, creating characters that are deeper and more complex, and not just a gimmick...
"There is a lot of WarCraft history - you've said this is set just before WoW - in future, would you consider revisiting further back in history? Maybe to the time of Arthas Menethil?"
Definitely interested, there's some great storylines in the history. Right now though, they're concentrating on the first movie - "Gotta get the first one right" - before thinking about future directions the films might take.
"Even though they've been rivals in the past - will Alliance + Horde join allegiances to fight against a common enemy in these films, or will it just be conflict between the two?"
At this stage, the Horde / Alliance conflict is the heart of the WarCraft series, so the film will definitely focus on that.
) Q&A |
If you try to build a movie franchise based on each of the game products, it gets a little clumsy. There's a 20 year gap between WarCraft II and III (is that a little StarWars-ish? We didn't plan that.) ...it's not based on any one specific game, it's got two or three recent components of recent games, drawn together. It's a little bit apart from the continuity, but not radically. They're working very hard to be as respectful as possible, trying to make it fit in with the games and not screw up the storyline. Basically - it's trying to present the perfect story, the best little soundbite from WarCraft for people who don't know about the history.
Essentially using characters, history, elements of the world - extrapolating it and putting it in a movie. If you're too rigid, too stuck to "what was in the game", then it won't necessarily translate to film - something that's cool for 5 minutes may not carry over to 2 hours.
"Are you planning on keeping some of the tongue-in-cheek humour from the games?"
Yes. Humour is critical to what WarCraft is - even in WoW, with the world as big as it is, there's a lot of over-the-top zany stuff, situational humour, bad jokes - wacky humour. It's something that people have come to expect from the games, so while we're still trying to figure out how it'll all fit, we're definitely going to make sure that the "WarCraft Humour" comes through.
"Will you focus on some of the same elements that Lord of the Rings did - makeup and costumes and practical effects - lots of real people fighting lots of real other people - or will you instead go with Blizzard's CG that you already have on hand - or will you just go for a blend of the two... or is that the director's call?"
Having the film grounded and feeling real - not like a dream sequence, say - is important. Every day the technology keeps getting better and better which will make the film look less cheesy than they did 10 years ago - but ultimately the director has a lot of say in the matter. 300 opened a lot of doors, and may have created some interesting ways of creating the WarCraft cinematics, with its super-vibrant colours and imagery that could never happen in real life. Digital world-building offers some very cool possibilities - now it's a case of waiting for a director with a vision to pull it all together.
"Behind the $100mil budget restrictions - are you considering approaching bigname actors, or instead looking for fresh faces?"
There are certain movies that "need" a big actor for the film to work - WarCraft doesn't need that.
Tangent... while working on Superman Returns, Brandon Routh who played young Superman was on a plane going somewhere with with Legendary and overheard part of a phone conversation with Blizzard about the upcoming movie.
Brandon grabbed my arm - this is the guy who's about to be Superman - and he was like "Wait a minute, do you know the WarCraft guys? Could you get me a tour of the WarCraft thing?" ...which we did. I don't think there'll be any shortage of actors wanting to be involved with this.
"Are there any plans to include input from Blizzard's art department into the workings of the film?"
At this time, everyone's busily working on the games stuff - but that's setting the precedent for the movie, it's a massive inspiration. We'll know more as time progresses.
"Are you interested in including Arthas in the storyline? References to the fall of Lordaeron or Silvermoon?"
This film probably doesn't focus on his storyline, but references to the fall of Lordaeron and other recent history that has only just taken place will probably be prevalent.
"...for the role of Thrall, are you planning on casting Borat?"
Um... he wasn't our first thought... maybe that guy he fought...
To close, here, have a picture of a storyboard. It's not a screenshot or specifically from the movie, but it's still nice.
)
That is an artist's impression of Teldrassil - the massive tree off the coast of Kalimdor, that may or may not make an appearance in the movie
Looks like this is finally happening - and with a 2009 estimated date, we should see news start trickling in fairly soon.
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