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World of Warcraft Film Shooting Begins Early 2014 181

An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this year Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code) was announced as Director of the long-awaited movie based on World of Warcraft. Legendary Pictures finally appears to be ready to move forward with production. Producer Charles Roven confirmed to SlashFilm that World of Warcraft: The Movie 3D IMAX Experience (suggested title) begins shooting in early 2014."
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World of Warcraft Film Shooting Begins Early 2014

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  • by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @09:10AM (#43904339) Journal

    World of Warcraft: The Grind of Darkness

    • Why "World of" warcraft? Is the plot of the movie going to have the inherently global scope that an MMO does? Does Warcraft have a seriously different name recognition from "World of Warcraft"? Does it mirror the "plot" of the MMO? Or does it just take place in Azeroth?

    • by Naatach ( 574111 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @09:17AM (#43904415)
      World of Warcraft: Queued for Greatness
    • by rwise2112 ( 648849 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @09:22AM (#43904491)
      Thought they already made it. It was called Kung Foo Panda.
    • I just hope they bring back Cartman for the lead

  • by Trepidity ( 597 ) <[delirium-slashdot] [at] [hackish.org]> on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @09:12AM (#43904357)

    Producer Charles Roven confirmed...

    Is there any justification for not having Uwe Boll do this?

    • Re:producer choice (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Elbereth ( 58257 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @09:31AM (#43904585) Journal

      The director is known for intelligent and creative science fiction films, which kind of puzzles me. Why, if you had that kind of reputation, would you make a film based on an MMORPG? There must either be a huge budget (which would be tempting to work with, after the smaller productions, I suppose) or a very good script. Despite my cynicism, I choose to believe that the script is insightful and well-written. Unfortunately, Wikipedia says the budget is around $220M, which makes my cynicism increasingly difficult to ignore. On the other hand, if they're spending this much money, they're probably going to try to do it right.

      • by Zarhan ( 415465 )
      • Are you familiar with the mythos of the Warcraft universe? Personally, I prefer the older RTS titles to WoW, but there are definitely some compelling stories to be told in that universe, if done right.
        • This x100. I actually really enjoyed some of the books written in the Warcraft universe. Even in WoW some of the stories are very well told. I mean, did you ever really read about the Lich King (http://www.wowwiki.com/The_Lich_King)? Arthas is an extremely interesting character.

          • by gl4ss ( 559668 )

            This x100. I actually really enjoyed some of the books written in the Warcraft universe. Even in WoW some of the stories are very well told. I mean, did you ever really read about the Lich King (http://www.wowwiki.com/The_Lich_King)? Arthas is an extremely interesting character.

            and I enjoyed zahn's star wars trilogy immensely and look how well that turned out for the star wars 1,2 and 3.

        • by Clsid ( 564627 )

          Well, WoW is pretty much the continuation of that story and to me that was always the biggest draw. Even when visiting Outland for the first time and remembering the scenery I saw in the original Warcraft 2 expansion was truly epic. But as far as stories go, I have to say that the coup d'etat in Undercity and the whole Thrall series, up to Cataclysm was awesome. I stopped playing when Pandaria came out but my friends told me it was good too.

        • by gl4ss ( 559668 )

          Are you familiar with the mythos of the Warcraft universe? Personally, I prefer the older RTS titles to WoW, but there are definitely some compelling stories to be told in that universe, if done right.

          yeah because orcs and elves story(good or not) totally needs a warcraft license..
          oh wait, the license is unnecessary for a good story since the setting is as generic as it can get. heck, the whole thing is repurposed from warhammer which is pretty damn generic itself.

          (the story in the movie might be good anyhow)

          • I'm not talking about "orcs and elves", I'm talking about the characters that fans of the series know and love. Sylvanas, Thrall, Arthas, Grom.
      • >if they're spending this much money, they're probably going to try to do it right. yes because all that money made john carter do so well.
      • by dywolf ( 2673597 )

        the script is not and has never been based on an mmorpg. its always been shopped around was "the warcraft movie", and was picked up by Legendary as such. there is a lot more to warcraft than just the mmo (few dozen books, and 3 entire preceeding games). people in the news simply dont know anything and cannot distinguish that WoW is simply the latest in a long line of games and existing backstory.

  • by Naatach ( 574111 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @09:15AM (#43904397)
    I swear to god if they do dailies of farming, I'll /ragequit the movie and punch the guy at the ticket counter.
    • I swear to god if they do dailies of farming, I'll /ragequit the movie and punch the guy at the ticket counter.

      No problem. You'll already have purchased popcorn, candy, and soda at the real-money-concession-stand at that point, so who cares?

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @09:17AM (#43904413)

    The first hour is basically just a group of people waiting for their tank to get online so that they can start the raid. The movie ends a half hour later, after the group had to settle for their off-tank filling the spot of their main. The group then proceeds to wipe to trash mobs over and over and over, until their healer has a complete breakdown, quits the guild, disconnects from the raid.

    • by T.E.D. ( 34228 )

      Nope. That still looks a lot more exciting than My Dinner with Andre [wikipedia.org], a movie about two people having a companionable chat in a restraunt.

      It won all kinds of best movie accolades in 1981 too, so I say the sky's the limit for your movie.

  • by second_coming ( 2014346 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @09:17AM (#43904421)
    .. it's at least 5 years too late
  • It's just a reboot of the Kung Fu Panda franchise.
  • by theurge14 ( 820596 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @09:22AM (#43904485)

    Probably waited a little too long. Story went off the rails around Cataclysm. Problems with class imbalances favoring overpowered death knights and paladins are so 2007 and 2008. Even the Mists of Kung-Fu Panda complaints are so last year.

    • >> the long-awaited movie based on World of Warcraft

      I laughed when I read that too. I don't think anyone, ever, has said, "the stories from Warcraft are so good that I'd pay to see them on the big screen while I passively sit around and watch them." Warcraft plots are just thin rationalizations for having two similar groups engage in tactical combat with one another, or set-ups for jokes. Even the cut-scenes are known to run long.

      Blizzard, please stick to what you know, and hurry up with the StarC

      • When I played I used to cringe when people recited the lore of the game. I just kept thinking, "The lore is just an excuse to shove another weird looking group in the game for us to kill."

        • by Clsid ( 564627 )

          No, the lore is there because some people grew up playing the original Warcraft games, so reading all that is actually pretty cool, and I'm really sorry that you weren't able to experience the single player aspect of the game a lot more. This is why stuff like QuestHelper killed a big part of the game. That's the whole point of role-play, that you make an effort to immerse yourself in the world.

  • by RogueyWon ( 735973 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @09:23AM (#43904499) Journal

    I'm really not sure that they're going to manage anything with this that's significantly better than the godawful Dungeons & Dragons movie we got back around the turn of the century. Is the Warcraft lore and universe really strong enough to support a movie?

    They had a reasonable enough storyline that ran from Warcraft 3 through to Wrath of the Lich King, centred on Arthas, but even that felt a bit Anakin Skywalker-derivative (though happily no Gungans here). Beyond that, the universe is about as generic fantasy as you can get. The elves have pointy ears and like trees, the dwarves have Scottish accents and like beer. Whenever they've tried to strike away from the core Arthas plot, the results have been either tedious (Cataclysm) or silly (Pandaria).

    Ah well, I suspect that given the normal development process, any movie will just end up as a thin pastiche with only a passing resemblance to the original IP anyway.

  • CGI or Live Action? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by paperpill ( 2862939 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @09:29AM (#43904559)
    I really hope the movie is not a Live action film. Blizzard guys make some of the best cinematics in the industry, would be great to see a CGI WoW Movie.
  • by Guppy ( 12314 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @09:30AM (#43904575)

    World of Warcraft: The Movie 3D IMAX Experience (suggested title) begins shooting in early 2014.

    No matter how bad the movie turns out, if they do a co-promotion that rewards players with a highly desirably in-game item, millions will go see it. I suggest that the item take the form of a ticket item that allows you to fight a special "Shark" mob, with a hidden weakness triggered by jumping.

  • by 1WingedAngel ( 575467 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @09:31AM (#43904583) Homepage

    Thrall, Warchief of the Horde - Chris Metzen
    Lady Sylvanas Windrunner - Chris Metzen
    Mekgineer Thermaplugg - Chris Metzen
    Scarlet Highlord Darion Mograine - Chris Metzen
    Malygos, the Spell-Weaver, Aspect of the Blue Dragonflight - Chris Metzen
    Illidan Stormrage, The Betrayer - Chris Metzen
    Prince Arthas Menethil - Chris Metzen
    King Varian Wrynn - Chris Metzen
    Ragnaros, the Firelord - Chris Metzen
    Additional Voices - Chris Metzen

    • You know who would be great for all these parts? Mel Blanc.

      Can someone send a Valkyrie his way to raise him?

  • by pellik ( 193063 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @09:55AM (#43904835)
    I really hope the catchphrase during the advertising of this movie is LEEROY JENKINS
  • by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @09:57AM (#43904869)
    A CG movie made from an MMO set in a Lord of the Rings knock-off universe. It has hit written all over it.
  • Dailies (Score:5, Funny)

    by Calydor ( 739835 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @09:58AM (#43904877)

    When you watch the movie for the first time, you'll be given a stamp book. Each time you pay to watch the movie you get a stamp.
    For stamps 1-7, you only get to watch the first 15 minutes of the movie.
    Stamps 8-14 allow the next 15 minutes, but you have to watch the first 15 minutes each time as well.
    Stamp 15 allows you to sit through the ad break.
    16-22 gives you the 20 minutes after the ad break, and you're told to enjoy the extra free content.
    23-29 has only ten minutes, though, but that's okay because this is WARCRAFT we're talking about.
    The 30th stamp will allow you to watch the underwhelming finale and the To Be Continued screen.

    At random points you will be set upon by an angry mob as you come out from the movie. You will be mugged and beaten up with baseball bats for the true World PVP experience.

  • i've always found it compelling, how all orcs became docile and listless after their defeat in the first war of orcs vs humans. the orcs were then rounded up and enslaved by the humans. thrall was raised by a human but eventually rebelled, freeing prison camp after prison camp and eventually amassing enough followers to found the horde and begin building a new nation.

    i'm sure we will just get lots of dumb eye candy and explosions though, and the world will be blessed with yet another awful video game movi

    • That was the storyline in single-player Warcraft 3 as I recall.

    • by Clsid ( 564627 )

      I'm not sure if you are actually asking how the orcs became like that or you are just saying you liked that part of the story. If it is the former, remember that orcs were that aggresive because of demonic influence. I don't remember too well, but I believe after the portal was destroyed that link was perturbed somehow and they became normal again, kind of the same way they explain in Warcraft 3. But as far as the wars, the first war ended up with the humans capturing Blackrock Spire. Second War with them p

  • Did Uwe Boll get the rights to make it?

  • The studio must have real faith in the movie if they're doing it in 3D.

  • Already done... (Score:4, Informative)

    by HockeyPuck ( 141947 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @10:35AM (#43905293)

    Southpark did this years ago...

    http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s10e08-make-love-not-warcraft [southparkstudios.com]

  • WoW hate? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by GodfatherofSoul ( 174979 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @10:36AM (#43905303)

    I played for about 2 years and enjoyed the heck out of the game. When I had my fill, I quit with memories of what I consider the greatest game ever created. Now, for some reason WoW is the object of derision of geeks. And, from complaints I can tell it's people who played FAR longer than I did as they're bitching about higher level classes and dungeons than I ever achieved.

    It's not Blizzards fault that you played a fun and engaging game with the pathological craving of a drug addict until you couldn't stand it anymore. That's on YOU and your lack of self control. If grinding bothered you, you would've stopped playing before you got your first mount.

    I play Eve now and there's the same incessant, pretentious mocking of WoW from people act like they moved to the Hamptons with their "new money" airs of superiority. And, as perplexing as it is for me to understand, the same people who spend hours probing for wormholes or mining lasers mock their days grinding in WoW!

    • by DrXym ( 126579 )

      It's not Blizzards fault that you played a fun and engaging game with the pathological craving of a drug addict until you couldn't stand it anymore. That's on YOU and your lack of self control. If grinding bothered you, you would've stopped playing before you got your first mount.

      Well it is kind of their fault, as in totally their fault. Why? For cynically designing a skinner box / game to string people along for months and months. They weren't the first or only MMO to do it but they were sure as hell the most successful and perfected it.

      Anyway subscriptions are falling month on month so I imagine that there are a great many people who've quit either through boredom, cost or the growing realisation that they weren't actually enjoying themselves. It's not the end of skinner boxes t

    • by Clsid ( 564627 )

      I feel the same thing. WoW will always be part of my hall of fame games, no matter how many haters out there. I think the only games that can rival how much I played WoW is all my RTS games combined. So they must have done something right because I wasn't exactly alone and most of us weren't kids either.

    • Wacraft radically changed between the first expansion and the current one. Gameplay is very different from what it once was. Imagine football fans being told that the rules of the game are going to be completely re-written so that it plays more like soccer, that watching the now "old-school" football they loved is now impossible, and that if they have a problem with that, they can go watch baseball or hockey instead. Of course they're going to rage.
      • And on top of that, they added frickin' pandas. The idiots should have bought the rights of FF XI from Square Enix instead.

        Female Mithras in santa suits... <Homer drool>

  • Perspective (Score:4, Funny)

    by bobdehnhardt ( 18286 ) on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @10:53AM (#43905499)

    TIL the entire movie will be shot from 3 feet above and 6 feet behind the main character.

    • Unless the character is backed up against an obstacle. In which case the camera will be placed between the obstacle and the back of the actor's head. And all you'll see is head. Nothing but the back of the head. In IMAX 3D!
  • The Plot of the movie will be as follows:

    Moviegoers will watch as only a few of the cast actual show up on time for the movie and will wait around for about an hour or so for the rest. After which a number of key roles will be missing, and which point the cast will start pugging actors from other movies which are currently playing which will take about another hour of the movie. The last 30 minutes of the movie which will be an exciting action packed blockbuster, which will eventually end with all the good

  • Is it going to look cartoony and crappy like the video game?

  • They have finally sorted their major design requirements.

    * Viewers not in the US will have the audio 200ms out of sync from the video.
    * The first 45 minutes will be the dps waiting for the tanks and healers to show up.
    * The movie will start out with the Horde and Alliance with about even representation, but in the last quarter of the movie the Horde will have 80% of the screen time.
    * Melee will get great action shots while the casters need the camera to be stationary to be able to do anything.
    * During the a

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