back to article Spider-Man director to helm World of Warcraft

Spider-Man director Sam Raimi will helm a movie adaptation of World of Warcraft, Variety reports. The film, produced under the Warner Bros umbrella, will presumably feature the "epic conflict between the Horde and the Alliance", described by Raimi as "a fantastic, action-packed story". Before he can get to grips with World of …

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  1. Leigh Smith
    Coat

    Spoilers

    Apparently the film will 2.5 hours long but the first 2 hours is the protagonist killing some mangy looking wolves over and over again. The last half an hour will involve the protagonist's attempt to escape the lag of Ironforge.

  2. EddieD
    WTF?

    Epic Fail

    There's been no conflict between the Horde and the Alliance since the first expansion and Shattrath was made a sanctuary zone for both factions.

    Shit, I was taking it seriously for a second.

    It's going to be wonderful - halfway through the film everyone on the losing team is going to say "only 15euro to change factions, then we'll win..."

    And besides, it's just going to be deathknights pwning (sic) all the other classes...and you aren't going to be able to tell who is on which side because all the armour is the same. And then halfway through, just as the champion is walking over the battlefield to wrest the still beating heart from the chest of Thrall the sound of an arcane mantra will be heard thusly...

    "Timmy, it's time for tea"

    "But Mum, we''ve just got the boss to kill"

    "I don't care Timmy, you are not prepared for tomorrow's test yet"

    "Sorry guys, got to AFK for a wh..."

    and the great wailing shall go up - "Ah feck - Who's going to MT now???" "No DKP for him"

    Making a game from a film can work. Goldeneye was a good game. Making a film from a video game. No. Just no.

    Still it's more money that ActiBlizz can wring from their unbelievably lucrative franchise, so more power to them

  3. The Original Ash
    FAIL

    WoW movie

    Narator: "Brave adventurer, your destiny as hero of this land is just beginning! Head forth into the world, and seek a town called Northshire in Elwynn Forest where you will meet a man who will set you on the path you choose..."

    *Impressive music, montage of arduous journey*

    Questy McQuestson: "Hail, brave traveller! You have made it this far, but will you endure my trials to train you to become the greatest warrior in the world?!"

    Hero: "Yes, I will take on any challenge you give me!"

    Q McQ: "Good. Now, for your first challenge, I want you to beat on some wolf cubs with this stick!"

    Hero: "... Huh?"

    Q McQ: "Beat on them until they die! Return to me when the ground explodes around you and you see stars!"

    Hero: "... Yeah, sure..."

    *Ding!*

    Hero: "Hey, done..."

    Q McQ: "Well done, hero! You are well on your way to being the greatest hero in the world... Now, go and kill 10 more wolf cubs. With that same stick, only swing it differently! This is because you have trained a new skill!"

    Hero: "Yeah, about that... Some Undead guy with the Sword of Noob Smiting Death Menace kept killing me over and over again while I tried to do that last quest."

    Q McQ: "Fear not, a GM will sort that out for you."

    *Queue 7 hours of "I want you to kill 11 Grombolgs and 76 Furflangs" style quests, and the movie closing prematurely as the gamer quits his account.

  4. Lottie
    FAIL

    I forsee fail

    I dunno, Spiderman sucks, the Evil Dead trilogy should remain untouched and I can't really see this WoW film being anything but a LOTR type thang with different character names.

    When was the last decent game to film conversion? The latter Resident Evil flicks were great, but the first was poor.

    Still, can't be any worse than the Bloodrayne movie.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    LEEROY JENKINS!!!!

    Sorry.

  6. Andy 99

    Additional films cannot be launched please try again later

    Also, when you try and walk into the screening it will say "Additional films cannot be launched please try again later" and you'll just appear back on the same side of the door. Because the money has already been taken out of your bank account you'll just continue to try again and again and no-one will have do anything about it.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Nooooooo

    Even as a bit of a WOW addict I have to say that is going to be shit. I firmly believe that Spiderman 3 was the worst film I have ever watched. It was so frustratingly dull it actually made me angry. The only reason so many Discs were distributed was that Sony was giving it away free with Blu-Ry players (they couldnt sell the bollocks)

    While this has the chance to be a fairly Epic film (with the bucket loads of material to choose from) it certainly wont be with that chump at the helm. I guess the prospect of selling 10 million cinema tickets to the other addicts was just to much for Hollywood to resist. I do wonder how they will translate social (it's a great laugh if you play with people you like) endless slaughter into an entire film.

  8. Daniel Buckley
    Thumb Up

    Pleeease...

    Tell me he's going to add Leeroy Jenkins into it

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!

    WHY!!!???

    Hasn't the world got enough sad, crappy films and other useless webtards around in the Web 0.2 for us to be unhappy and grumpy enough about without a WoW movie being released????!!!

  10. Stef 4
    Megaphone

    Thank God...

    Thank God Uwe Boll is writing & directing.

  11. Vetis

    WoW

    predictable jokes. besides, no-one said it has to be set in the current timeline.

    the major conflict ended before vanilla wow by the way, with minor skirmishes lingering but still long before shattrath.

  12. Yorkshirepudding
    WTF?

    never forget

    the lessons of mario bros *shudders*

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Troll

    I'll be happy...

    ...as long as there are trolls.

  14. Andy Blackburn
    Badgers

    As long as...

    Leroy Jenkins gets a cameo, all is good!

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Have no fear, fellow WoWers

    I have a 'Scroll of Improve Movie +100%' in one of my bags....or it might be in the bank....no, no, I mailed it to an alt...back in a mo....

  16. Paul Rogers

    WoW Gold farming epic fail!

    I'm betting there'll be no WoW l33t Gold spamming by knights of the randomly charactered names. I wonder if the robot chickens will make an appearance?

    I can see it now, 2 hours of our heroes following a robot chicken, beating to death any beasty/mob that comes along only to be given quest 2 in a 10 quest chain at the end of it... which will lead rather nicely into WoW 2: The quest for the robot chicken continues

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    WoW Gold

    I wonder if someone will keep popping up every 2 minutes with a placard reading "Buy Gold - Legal Seller" ...

    Also will someone run up to the main character, drop a PvP flag, be refused and run around in circle shouting 'Fag, Pussy etc'

    I wonder if it will have an 18 certificate so all the WoW kiddie can't watch. I would laugh myself silly if that happened.

  18. Tawakalna
    Troll

    Spells?

    I have a Special Charm of Seeing Another Film to hand, or better still, I may nip to the local tavern and pursue my ale quest there instead.

    World of Warcraft film? the only people who would possibly be interested in this will be too busy playing World of warcraft to go! Besides, they'd need to have a bath etc which would take too much time away from playing World of Warcraft!

    my brother-in-law plays this drivel obsessively in his spare time, i expect that's why his wife is divorcing him.

  19. Richard 39
    Thumb Up

    I would give....

    my whole tier 7.5 set and epixxx weapon to be a blood elf in that movie!!

  20. Mike 93

    If Sam is directing...

    ...that means Bruce Campbell will be making an appearance.

  21. ContentsMayVary

    It's not a WORLD of Warcraft movie...

    Well, this isn't a World of Warcraft film. Instead, it's based on the old Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos game from 2002.

    So you guys will have to go and play that game to find some relevant funnehs to say. ;)

  22. lukewarmdog
    Joke

    actually

    it will be a PG-64. Anyone over the age of 13 can enter the cinema but you have to queue in the lobby until there are 64 of you because it IS that epic.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Brucie bonus!

    With Sam Raimi at the helm, I forsee the following (as the film is set 1 yr before WoW which iirc is 5 yrs after War3):

    Arthas has been slowly corrupting the indigenous people of Northrend and raising them as undead minions. He has an army and is preparing to march upon the Eastern Kingdoms in order to quell the human resistance before looking to the elves and orcs before they can fully recover from the attack of the Burning Legion. He rides along the beach shouting orders to his horde and rallying them for the battles ahead. He retreats to his vessel and a giant storm erupts out of nowhere. The undead retreat to safe locations and the storm passes.

    As they re-gather on the beach an odd sound can be heard, a bit like a goblin tree shredder. A human stands with a chainsaw and a shotgun, omfg its Bruce Campbell! He then decimates the undead and explains to Arthas (who pretended to be a captured human) he had once again iterated the wrong phrase from the necronomicon and instead of just going back in time he travelled across universes too. Bruce then disappears as he remembers the right phrase and Arthas has to wait for 5 years and 2 expansions before he can wreak havoc once more.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    More seriously

    Warcraft was originally a warhammer game only GW pulled out and blizzard had to make up a backstory. And they did. There is a massive amount of backstory behind the game and I beleive the film will delve into that instead of going far forward. The actual story writing in warcraft isn't too bad.

    That said, it'll still be crap I reckon.

  25. Lupus

    The Ice Stone has melted!

    The Ice Stone has melted!

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    @ContentsMayVary

    It isn't Warcraft 3...that was 5 years before WoW (http://www.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/warcraft_timeline/) and the comment direct from Blizzard say the movie is based 1year before WoW events. Meaning it could be about Outland but as they mention 'the lands you know' its most likely looking to be about the Proudmoores/Thrall relationship...maybe.

    "The story takes place about a year before WoW begins," Blizzard creative director Chris Metzen explained at the time. "You're likely to see a lot of races you've played, the lands you know. The story really is a number of main plot points kind of rolled into a really strong two, two and a half hour tale...thematically it's about cultures and conflict."

    (source: http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/59633)

  27. MinionZero
    Happy

    A well made film would be awesome...

    I find this really cool news. (I guess inevitable, as they can't remake LOTR (yet), so get the next best thing ;)

    Anyway, joking aside, I would love to see a well made film of World of Warcraft. I love the CG adverts for it, they are some of the best game CG I've ever seen, so a full on war film could be awesome. :)

  28. Ben Rosenthal

    if it doesn't have...

    Gorge the Corpsegrinder as the hero, it is doomed to fail.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Two words...

    ZUG ZUG!!!!

  30. Witty username
    Joke

    But will it

    ..be merely a setback?

  31. the real jacob
    Joke

    Have to wait til peak time..

    "This film will end in 2 minutes. Not enough Viewers"

  32. Owen Milton

    it's a million to one, but it just might work...

    If they veer away from the "It's a game" aspect and instead start tell a cool story it might just work and be worth seeing. I'm talking about something with a story on par with the Looking for Group webcomic.

    Granted, then it's less about the game and more "It's a cool fantasy movie that has the same name"!

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Warning - spoiler alert.

    I discovered this version of the script online, I hope they change a few things though and one thing is obvious, while the world (of warcraft) will be saved things end very badly.

    Just as the heroes look set to destroy their evil nemesis, they will suddenly and inexplicably find themselves stuck on the Authenticating Screen road, having been advised by the sage Server Update Notice that the realms will be down for a further 3 hours at which point he will provide further information.

    However our brave adventurers are hard of endurance and will return.. only to find that the twin monsters "This Fucking Boss is Fucking Stupid, Who the Fuck Comes Up With This Shit, I'm Fucking Leaving" and "You're All Fucking Noobs, Look At that Hunter's Spec and That Death Knight is Still Wearing Greens, Fuck All Of You" standing in their path.. causing a number of the brave companions to lose spirit and log off.

    Of course after returning to the City of Realm Forums and recruiting new heroes to join them, they will destroy these evil doers and save the world (of warcraft) from destruction. Unfortunately that is not the end of their trials. Bickering and fighting over the monsters' treasure trove end in Guild Drama, I Always Roll A 3, Need the Ninja and I've Never Spent Any DKP So I Have An Untouchable Balance killing the mighty hero Game Master and scatter the rest of our heroes to distant realms where they recognise no one and suddenly find themselves facing despair and dying of the deadly disease Oh God, This Is The Wrong Time Zone.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    WoW the Film

    A harrowing tale of addiction.

  35. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    WTF?

    What a complete waste of time!

    The only people remotely interested will be WoW losers, even then all they will do is download it and then moan about how crap it is!

    I know Shakespeare said there were only 7 plots ( or whatever number it was ), but the barrel is being scraped so much now that there is a danger the bottom is about to fall apart completely!

  36. GHok

    Wah?

    Because people who play WoW are really in it for the lore?

    People love the Mario franchise, but they love it as a GAME... this is the same thing.

    Not that I don't think the lore isn't moderatly interesting, but this movie is being made just because the studio thinks the name will be a draw. And when they think that then story tends to matter not one bit.

    Still, while I'm no Raimi fanboy, a fantasy movie by him might be fun. Oh wait, didn't he do Xena? Meh, I saw that once or twice and hated it.

  37. Michael Hoffmann Silver badge

    The movie poster...

    Drama! (a day in the life of a guild leader)

    Epic! (ninjad by the master looter)

    Sex! (yar, yar, hump, hump)

    Suspense! (release and run back or wait for a rez?)

    Mystery! (who's got a portal to Dalaran?)

  38. Adam T

    Patch

    What no jokes about having to sit through a three hour patch in the cinema?

    I'd rather see another South Park movie.

  39. Mal Franks
    Thumb Down

    Personally I think

    that a Warhammer-based film would be far more interesting.

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