World of Warcraft movie gets Blood Diamond writer
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Charles Leavitt writing latest script for upcoming film adaptation of Blizzard's MMORPG; Activision CEO Bobby Kotick says the film is "important."
When the World of Warcraft movie lost Spider-Man director Sam Raimi last month, it looked as if the film based on Blizzard's MMORPG might be destined to stall. However, Blizzard and Legendary Pictures are pressing on, with Hollywood news site Variety reporting today that Blood Diamond and K-Pax writer Charles Leavitt has come aboard to pen the film's newest script.
In 2009, Saving Private Ryan scribe Robert Rodat was announced as the World of Warcraft film's writer. It is not clear if Rodat and Leavitt will pen the movie's script together, or if Rodat has left the project.
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick told Variety that Legendary Pictures has been meticulous in its approach to adapting World of Warcraft for the silver screen.
"[It's] important to Blizzard, it's important to me," he said. "They're very excited about having a World of Warcraft film. They've been very careful and thoughtful about the development process."
No replacement for Raimi--who left the film to work on Oz: The Great and Powerful--has been announced, but Variety says a search for a new director is underway. Legendary Pictures is also currently working on a Mass Effect movie, though details on that project remain scant.
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
162 comments
"movie is just an assistant method to explore wow fan. the most important for blizzard i think is to get the game better and better so that gamers will be more and more "---http://www.farmer100.com
I am really will be so happy if they will get Michael Bay to direct the WoW film. Raimi knows only to spoil the essence of WoW. Hope they will pick him. I have been longing for a WoW real movie for 8years .
1 Like The movie has the chance to be something amazing, but only if it's NOT live action. Unless there's going to be a good mix of live action and CGI, like Lord of the Rings or Avatar, then they should just stick to making it a great 3D movie with graphics like in the games trailers.
1 Like If it's not CGI, I struggle to see it living up to fans' expectations.
Game to move adaptions very rarely work; we want an alternate reality, with passionate acting, acting that I've only found in CGI films, due to passionate CGI teams.
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@buccomatic im pretty sure blizzard isnt working on that project, they ARE working on games, if u read the article, theyre letting another company do their movie...
The biggest and most obvious problem this movie will suffer from is the fact that my character will not be in it! :(
I hope that the movie is as good as the games , blizzard always makes things with quality , but a movie of world of warcraft can be good , because wow has such a great and big story , if they play this right , they can make more than one and win allot of money and new players to world of warcraft .
2 Like People shouting for Uwe Boll most likely have no idea who he is. It would be an awful mix.
Blood Diamond was a pretty damn good movie, if you didn't think so, it's probably just not your type of movie. Violent and extremely brutal, unforgiving and very real. People living in those situation experience death all around them everyday.
It'll be interesting what type of horrific brutality he'll bring to World of Warcraft.
@mindpurge I agree with you hopefully it will be epic this is taking a lot of time and they haven't canceled is possible that it will be a great film even for people that doesn't know the game.
having those writers is going to be good they are preparing a very good story.
@mindpurge Doubtful as I would wager that a World of Warcraft movie will be shooting for a PG or PG-13 rating
2 Like They are going to choose the history about a fat panda monk who saved all azeroth with his mega panda skills.
I'm curious as to what story they will chose from the warcraft universe...the lore is absolutely humongous.
1 Like No one go see this movie! Another cash grab to trick the Blizzard fans. Remember May 15th...
6 Like Make a full length CGI movie! Blizzard has some of the best CGI videos in their games and i would pay to see a full length movie of that.
@Ashmodai69 We all know that would be insane, but it would also cost a bagillion $$$, and take 7 years to make.....
Well, I had high hopes but was skeptical before, now I figure we might as well throw in the towel. The guy writing it is mediocre at best and adapting a screenplay from a different work is hard enough when its from a similar medium like a book or play, so making a screenplay based of a video game world is probably going to be next to impossible for him. I still hope its good, but I highly doubt it. I'm gonna guess a Rotten Tomatoes score at 12-24%, any takers?
In my opinion, I just do not see this movie going well as usual. I wish I was wrong, but with the writer of Blood Diamond my hopes are down low, since the story of written for that movie was pure awful to me.
I like the idea, and have thought a Warcraft movie could be cool a long time ago i guess a World of Warcraft movie could work.
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1 Like @Suikogaiden 90% of Pixar movies are good, or are favorably received. I can't name more than 3 movies total that Pixar has done that I didn't like, and there are a lot of Pixar movies. Compare that with video game movies on the whole, I would say they would be smart to try and get Pixar to do something with it, but Pixar is into crafting original properties and stories. For every really good movie made from a videogame you can name me, I can name 5 bad video game movies. I think your hope is unfounded.
I am pretty sure the only Pixar movie that a number of movie critics said was a major dissapointment was Car 2. A number of critics said the problem with Cars 2 was its plot which I think has something to do with Lightning McQueen having to race in an international race competition, while Mater joins with a secret agency to stop the cars that are after Lightning. Typing that part with Mater joining the spy agency sound awfully cheesy to me for some reason. Every other movie they done so far are well done.
1 Like @interrasteral7 Cars 2 was a pretty terrible movie, it was just spy cliches with cars in it. I could have worked as one of the Pixar 10 minute shorts but as a full length movie it was awful which sucks because Pixar is my favorite film company. Hell, I think Toy Story is the greatest trilogy of all time (yes, including Lord of the Rings).
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@Suikogaiden Mortal Kombat, Super Mario Bros, and Wing Commander were horrible. Just horrible. Not a single redeeming quality... except for maybe that they weren't Bloodrayne.
1 Like @Suikogaiden Your really bluring the lines between childrens movies and family movies. A childrens movie is a movie designed specifically for a child (think any direct to DVD movie advertised on Nickelodeon). A family movie is a movie where anyone could enjoy the movie despite their age, whether they are with there family or not, which Pixar is the king of. But I guess I get your point. Still I think all the movies you listed above where bad movies, although I will admit that lots of people might have been to harsh on them just because of the medium the franchise originated from.
1 Like @Suikogaiden I must be misunderstanding what you said because only an absolute moron would claim Resident Evil, Mortal Combat, Silent Hill, Super Mario Bros, and Wing Commander were anywhere even close to Pixar's movies (with the exception of Cars 2, that movie was terrible).
@danielkennedy91 Good lord you can only pray its anything like John Carter except this time with better marketing. John Carter was amazing.
@danielkennedy91 they have at least 10 million people (subscribers) that will go see it plus people who played wow and the rts warcraft 1, 2 & 3 and there friends.
@Fartman7998 Pretty sure they already confirmed it will, but your guessing this because somehow you think the entire story focuses on the Alliance when its probably more focused on the Horde now.
@Fartman7998 Twenty bucks says it will not be just one movie.
A trilogy would feel more blizzard-like, don't you think?
Too many ppl want to watch the movie, so blizzard decided to nerf the awesomeness of the story. Aren't you thankful?
@FlawlessGoBot what troll blizz fangirl...
the guy is joking...dam u blizz nerds,get out of your caves once in a while....let the sun hit you
@Albaficas Wow, got a serious case of butthurt going don`t you? And how exactly is suggesting someone that is wishing Uwe Boll, even jokingly, on ANY movie project being a troll constitute being a Blizzard fan?
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