Can The Warcraft Film Succeed?

With little doubt, the silver screen is one of the hardest truths for the gaming community to swallow. There haven’t been many successful gaming-to-film adaptations, and the ones we do consider worthy often need a large helping of apologies and rationalizations: that humorless Hitman film, the gory and hollow Silent Hill, Prince of Persia, Lara Croft, and Mortal Kombat—whose ludicrously goofball atmosphere continuously bats the veil of eternal nostalgia off our faces. Don’t get me wrong, we all love one, or even a few, of these movies in their own way, but none of them have ever been the off-beat, Bladerunner-esque killer that could bring faith to non-believers. Will Warcraft finally shatter those popcorn and slurpee-laden chains?

No. Probably not, at least. But that doesn’t mean Warcraft won’t be good. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be something to look forward to, to talk about, to cosplay as, and that it won’t grow its own community. Just as Singer brought it to X-Men, and Raimi brought it to Spider-Man, and Nolan brought it to the DC movie-verse, Duncan Jones could potentially bring about a powerful film presence for Blizzard franchises. I understand that it’s all a little dramatic, considerably more so if you’ve already declared an opinion on the matter, but the film has yet to be released. Only then will anyone know the true level of this beast.

Let’s get some background. In May 2006, Blizzard (creators of the Starcraft, Diablo, and, of course, Warcraft series) and Legendary Pictures (the production company responsible for every major Zack Snyder and Chris Nolan film) made their deal to create a film adaptation of the Warcraft franchise public. With World of Warcraft subscriptions at 6 or 7 million and aggressively climbing, this was a huge announcement—one that could garner the attentions of the A-list talent necessary to pull off an insane ploy such as this.

Sam Raimi, the man behind the first set of Spider-Man adaptations as well as the cultalicious Evil Dead films, was on board for a few years, only to fall off the project and begin filming Oz the Great and Powerful. While he had originally cited scheduling as the source of his leave, Raimi’s interview with The Vulture in 2013 revealed that Blizzard wasn’t communicative with him. He claims that he and screenwriter Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan, The Patriot, Thor: The Dark World) received a script that had been written by Blizzard employees, but Raimi said that “it didn't quite work for me” and proposed that they two come up with a story instead. He goes on to recall that he and Rodat worked for 9 months on a script after their story pitch was approved by both Legendary and Blizzard, except that it wasn’t. While Legendary’s approval was genuine, Raimi claims that Blizzard told him that “they had reservations, but accepted it” when they actually did not. The collaboration quickly dissolved from there.

This story was popular when it came out, giving everyone another reason to doubt the film’s potential. Raimi seemed like the perfect choice because of the way he injected his Spider-Man films with humor and charm, as well as the fact that he played World of Warcraft! They needed to grab someone big, someone real, someone with a name people know spoken aloud, that we could all recklessly thrust our romantic and dangling hopes into.

But things took a turn. Instead of getting a Nolan or a Whedon, we got a Duncan Jones. Duncan Jones, son of the recently and regretfully passed artist David Bowie, doesn't have a long list of box office studs or smash hits, only a very insightful, heavily awarded, little indie film he made called Moon starring Sam Rockwell, which was then followed by the decently solid popcorn-thriller Source Code with Jake Gyllenhaal. While I admit that Duncan Jones doesn’t have the resume that many household names can call on, I can certainly imagine he’s hungrier than those directors as well. It’s very uncommon for someone with his understated career to be passed a baton of this magnitude, one that holds the weight of a potentially massive franchise.

Regardless of speculation, Jones is and has been the force that’s driving this tank into theatres. His vision, along with that of screenwriter Charles Leavitt’s (Seventh Son, Blood Diamond, K-PAX), may be the thing that can not only garner anticipation for sequels and successors, but that could also grow the WoW and MMO community even larger. And if the media press hasn’t screamed it in your ear loud enough already, then you’ll be pleased to learn that Jones is a subscriber too, just as Raimi was.

The assembled cast also has some very shiney bits under all that CGI. The Warcaft film’s lead role, Sir Anduin Lothar, is being played by Travis Fimmel, who’s been spearheading History Channel’s hit period drama Vikings for 4 seasons now. Lone Survivor’s Ben Foster and Toby Kebbell, who sells every single word in his truly awesome Black Mirror performance, will be playing the Magnus Medivh and the leader of the Orcish Frostwolf Clan, Durotan, respectively. And Clancy Brown, recognizable visually as the wildly angry Captain Hadley of Shawshank Redemption, and audibly as the greedy and shrill voice of Spongebob’s Mister Krabs, who has decades of experience and skill that will be easily seen through the lens of Blackhand, leader of the Oricsh Blackrock Clan. A number of other talented actors, like Paula Patton and Robert Kzinsky, will grace the screen as well, but these are the few that I believe could ring the bell throughout.

In a chat with The Gaurdian Director Duncan Jones states that he “wanted to give people a sense of why so many people play and care about the game.” Could these noble intentions really have roots below the surface? Could Jones really push through the door that so many have thrown their foolhardy weight at? While the trailer and a bevy of details are available to feed the public’s fears fully in the meantime, no one will have an honest answer until June 10, 2016.

But let’s imagine that this actually is our kind of poison and the film does become as big as any of the other mega-franchises, what could it really lead to? I’m sure the first and most validated notion is sequels, which there will probably be en masse, a la Disney’s Pirates and the X-Men series. There might be spin-offs, but even more likely will be the further exploration of the Blizzardverse. Starcraft and Diablo are both series that are just as full of story and lore and fans as Warcraft is. Beyond that, studios would be climbing over themselves to move in on a market brimming with juicy IPs like Everquest, Ultima Online, and any others from the never-ending list of MMOs.

But then again, it could also all be a cruel fantasy that does nothing more than kick off a summer that scorches. It could go the way that most game adaptations go: the dollar bin. Warcraft could disappoint and depress our grumbling souls all the way out those cold theatre doors, throwing the blame at Blizzard for declining Raimi and Rodat’s story. And probably worst of all, Duncan Jones, a very young and promising filmmaker, and the rest of this team could end up having to live in the same place that all our broken film dreams are swallowed up into: The Uwe Boll Dimension. A horrible fate for any mortal.

I think I prefer optimism in this case. I’m not the responsibility-less youngster I once was, joined at the hip with my WoW subscription, but I don’t look regretfully on the time I invested into it either. I made lifelong memories and friendships that have far greater worth than the hours I put into the wilds of Azeroth. When you really think about it, this is the film we’ve been crossing our fingers anxiously over for almost a decade now. At this point, with this director, and this cast, I think that this film has deserved a few days in the sun, if not more.