We Imagine - World Of Warcraft: The Movie

By Author: Chris Coker
Total Articles: 18
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It's been on again more times than Lindsay Lohan's knickers. For nearly five years, since that first captivating cinematic intro to the classic World of Warcraft, gamers have craved a cinematic adaptation to Blizzard's magnum opus. In this article we ponder what form such celluloid sweetness might take.

The man behind the wheel, Sam Raimi

When Sam Raimi was chosen to direct Sony's multi-billion dollar adaptation of the popular Marvel comic, Spider-Man, a lot of folks couldn't wrap their heads around the decision. Raimi was a director known more for comedic, off-beat horror... not delivering summer blockbusters.

Fast forward a decade or so, and the decision to choose Sam Raimi as director of the World of Warcraft movie seems like WoW gold in the bank, if you will.

Raimi was most famous for his Evil Dead films, which included Evil Dead 1 and 2, and Army of Darkness. What attracted Sony suits however, was Raimi's ability to blend danger and humor, and his solid directorial hand.

It also helped greatly that Raimi was such a fan of the Spider-Man character. He knew the comic inside and out, knew ...
... what made it important, and was able to adapt this intangible magic to the screen.

So he knows tights and capes, but does he know his orcs, dwarves and blood elves? Oddly enough, yes! Raimi happens to be a massive World of Warcraft fan who has gone on record as having at least one maxed out main character.

Being a fan of the source material isn't a prerequisite for being able to direct a successful movie adaptation, but you only have to look at his work on Spider-Man, Guillermo Del Toro's work on Hellboy, Peter Jackson's work on The Lord of The Rings, etc. etc. to know that true passion for the material only helps ensure that the world of Azeroth will be represented in slavish detail. Raimi's eye for action and extensive experience working with advanced special effects over the course of the Spider-Man trilogy will only help serve him here.

The sad history of game movie adaptations

It's a shame, but the truth is that basing a movie on a videogame in Hollywood has generally meant flushing WoW gold down the drain.

The only consistently successful film series based on a videogame has been the Resident Evil film series, and frankly, one might argue about the quality of these adaptations, and their faithfulness to the source material.

And yet, they keep coming. From Super Mario Bros. to Double Dragon, Doom and Streetfighter, it's just never gone well. You only need to look at the recent failure of Disney's mega-big-budget action adventure flick, The Prince of Persia to know that there's something wrong here. Sure there was a ton spent on marketing and the films' massive budget, then why didn't it set the box office alight as expected? Was it a weak story? Lack of faithfulness to the original material? Do videogames just not translate well to the movie format?

Where to draw inspiration from

Not like Tron. These are the words of Sam Raimi when asked whether the World of Warcraft movie would follow a similar template to Disney's sci-fi videogame film, Tron, in which part of the film took place in the real world and the rest in the virtual world.

Frankly, such a movie would probably have been seen as a bait and switch, or too artsy of a presentation. Wow-heads want to see Azeroth living and breathing, not reduced to a virtual world, otherwise what's the point of making the movie in the first place?

Lord of the Rings' verisimilitude. Lord of the Ring's impact on the movie making landscape, particularly in the oft-maligned fantasy genre, has been massive.

One of its greatest successes was the manner in which it cemented its universe, and made it seem just as real as ours. It was dark, grungy, dirty, textured, and packed with historical details that hinted at tales and legends that stretched beyond what we observed on the screen. One wouldn't suggest that a World of Warcraft movie adopt the same bleached palette (WoW is colorful after all), but we'd hope that a similar effort is made to etch and carve Azeroth's rich history into the fabric of this movie.

Post Avatar Tech

It goes without saying that since Avatar's phenomenal two billion dollar plus box office blitz, the rules have changed. Suddenly, everything has to be in 3D. But what should be of more importance for Raimi and his production team to look at, is just how James Cameron and his crew brought the world of the N'avi to life in startling detail.

Using the latest techniques in computer graphics and performance capture, Cameron and co. were able to capture in stunning detail every emotion, expression and twitch made by the movie's lead actors. Considering that non-human characters make up such a large percentage of Azeroth, one would hope that Raimi and his crew adopt similarly impressive techniques to bring Azeroth to life.

Pixar's storytelling nous

Everything Pixar touches turns to gold, and there's a good reason for that. At its very core, every Pixar movie has a great story, and great characters. There can't be any denying that World of Warcraft has a ton of lore, and fascinating as it is, lore alone isn't enough to get moviegoers to keep coming back. Raimi and his writing team will have to sit down, and parse a great story from all that lore, one that's faithful to the material, but not too dense that folks new to the property can't get involved. It's never easy satisfying everyone, but with the amount of money that's likely to be on the line, it'll be essential to WoW's success.

Speaking of success...

What are the real chances that a World of Warcraft film will be successful? It's hard to say, while the property is wildly popular and has appeal even beyond the traditionally hardcore, other than Lord of the Rings, fantasy movies have tended not to do very well at the box office, likewise videogame adaptations, so it has those two strikes working against it, but then, it's World of Warcraft, and it's being directed by Sam Raimi.

Ultimately you have to wonder whether the film will ever get made, or whether, Microsoft's failed Halo movie, will just fade away. Raimi has stated that the script is being worked on, and since directing Spider-Man 3, he has only worked on the small scale horror comedy Drag Me To Hell. Wow-heads can only hope and pray that the Hollywood machine moves quickly enough that Raimi's head doesn't get turned, because if he takes up another project, it will mean whatever director comes aboard will want to start almost from scratch on pre-production, and that's a recipe for development hell!

Chris Coker is a freelance writer and avid gamer. He has written on all aspects of the MMO industry, focusing on his latest favorite, Star Trek Online. Check out some of his posts where he dishes out everything from ship interiors to energy credits to good old-fashioned grinding.