WARCRAFT movie will not be based on WORLD OF WARCRAFT

Director Duncan Jones has revealed some information about the upcoming WarCraft movie at the recent BlizzCon event in California. The most notable is that the movie will not be based on World of WarCraft, but will instead reach back to the origins of the WarCraft franchise.

Concept art for the WarCraft movie. Clockwise from top-left: Draenor, Dalaran, Stormwind and Ironforge.

The film will pit humans and orcs against one another. The human faction will be led by Anduin Lothar, whilst Durotan (father of Thrall) will command the orcs. Those savvy with WarCraft lore will recognise these names from the 1995 game WarCraft II, in which they played important roles. According to Jones, the movie will present the POV of both the orcs and humans rather than suggesting that one is good and the other evil.

Draenor, Dalaran, Ironforge and Stormwind are the locations for which Jones showed off concept art. Bill Westenhofer, the head of effects, is a regular World of WarCraft player and says that he often logs into the game to drawn on actual locations and environments for inspiration. There is also an urge to do as much as possible in-camera rather than using CGI: the preference at the moment is to use prosthetics for the orcs, for example.

The WarCraft film is currently in active pre-production and will start shooting in Vancouver in early 2014. The film will be released on 18 December 2015, when it will face off against Star Wars: Episode VII.

Blizzard have also confirmed that they are working on new versions of WarCraft: Orcs and Humans, WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness and WarCraft II's expansion pack, Beyond the Dark Portal, which will be compatible with modern PCs.

WARCRAFT movie gets greenlight

Yeah, it's happening. Somewhat unexpectedly, since Sam Raimi jumping ship seemed to sink the project, but Legendary Pictures are now pushing ahead with an adaptation of the venerable RTS (and, more recently, life-destroying online RPG) series.

This news may attract a lot "Meh," from the audience, but there are two interesting things about the announcement. The first is that their director of choice is Duncan Jones, who previously helmed Moon and Source Code. Jones is noted as a more thoughtful, minimalist director than what you'd expect for this kind of project. The Hollywood Reporter is also reporting a budget of over $100 million: impressive, but nothing like the $200 million + you'd normally expect of a film of this magnitude.

At this point there is no word on casting or storyline, although Blizzard are going to be heavily involved. Blizzard lore-master Chris Metzen is consulting and advising on the script, so something faithful to the mythos is to be expected.

At this stage there is no word if an ironically Jack Black-voiced Pandaren will feature as comic relief.