Back in July, it was announced that Sam Raimi would be directing the long-rumored movie adaptation of MMO powerhouse, World of Warcraft. This along with Spider-Man 4 presented two gigantic and time-consuming projects for the Evil Dead and Drag Me To Hell director, and it is still uncertain which will be coming first.
It was first assumed that the WoW movie would be based on a spinoff novel that was written within the game’s world called Arthas: Rise of the Lich King, but it is now confirmed via an interview with MTV that the movie will be an original story set in the world and involving its characters. It was also confirmed that the movie is being written by Saving Private Ryan scripter Robert Rodat and that it will likely be simply titled Warcraft.
Turning a game like Warcraft into a movie is probably about as difficult as it could be to turn a game into a movie. Being an MMO, there is a story, but the game is never-ending and the story isn’t the selling point, so you have to pick and choose what you want to use and construct a story out of these countless elements, settings, and characters. The challenge becomes even greater knowing the track record of video game based movies, as we all are well-aware of, so the mountain for Raimi is large.
Click over to read what Raimi had to say.
We would choose… something that encompasses lands and characters and storylines, and we would be true to it. But our story may or may not be about one of those central characters.
We want to be really faithful to the game. We would have our writer, Robert Rodat, really craft an original story within that world that feels like a ‘World of WarCraft’ adventure. Only obviously it’s very different ’cause it’s expanded and translated into the world of a motion picture. The Horde and the Alliance and the mythology that takes place in the game, and the archetypes that the game presents. I think we would try and find touchstones within the game to make it accurate and true and choose one or some of the lands that are portrayed in the game with as much accuracy and authenticity as possible.
As long as they show some Tauren, I’ll be happy with it