Producer of '300' talks World of Warcraft film

by Ross Miller { Jun 27th 2007 at 3:24PM }

During his keynote at the Hollywood & Games summit, Legendary Pictures chairman and 300 producer Thomas Tull discussed his company's upcoming film adaptation of the mega-popular World of Warcraft (no, not that "adaptation"). Blizzard is working very closely with Legendary, according to Tull (via Gamasutra). "They're sitting right there at the table with us as we develop the story and the script, and I think we're nailing the story and what's compelling about it," he said.

Tull also spoke of the need to capture an audience beyond the WoW subscriber base. "Sure, there are 8 million people playing WoW," he said, "but even if all of those people saw the movie multiple times, we'd still be screwed." He also showed optimism in attaining that audience, remarking that the MMO "has the right stuff to make it happen."

Legendary Pictures was also recently tied -- and quickly untied -- to a Diablo film adaptation.

Tags: egendary pictures, EgendaryPictures, film, legendary, movie, thomas tull, ThomasTull, tull

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Shagittarius @ Jun 27th 2007 3:30PM

Wii it be appropriately Named:

Film of Warcraft

Jonathan Tran @ Jun 27th 2007 3:40PM

Man this movie is going to be BAD. BAD BAD BAD.

1. Should have done Diablo or Starcraft, as WoW has NO REAL STORY
2. Real actors ftl
3. I bet 80% of the jokes in this movie will make no sense to non WoW players, outside of the obligatory inclusion of Leeory Jenkins
4. Nobody will see this movie since it means standing in line with dozens of people in cosplay
5. Making movies about video games is dumb. Always has been. Case in point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyXUVd2c83c

Intentless @ Jun 27th 2007 3:45PM

Actually... The world of warcraft not World of Warcraft has a very large and immersive story... There is a lot of potential...

Phranctoast @ Jun 27th 2007 3:47PM

Id rather have something from forogotten realms. The icewind dale trilogy would be great. They already turned the dark elf trlogy into a graphic novel so they are at least going in the right direction.

Bad Mojo @ Jun 27th 2007 3:54PM

I think a movie would kind of ruin the experience. I picture some over-SFX'd, lame live action Lord of the Rings type treatment. If they did something animated maybe I could bite, but live action, not so much...

jc @ Jun 27th 2007 4:32PM

The development of the Diablo film at Legendary is definitely not a rumor. This Variety article from late May even mentions a script being written by Gary Whitta: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117965533.html

I strongly doubt that the Warcraft film will not be a fully-animated CGI production.

h8rain @ Jun 27th 2007 4:48PM

They could make the game using in-games graphics :). Some of the youtube videos are really good. The south park episode was great :)

Jake @ Jun 27th 2007 4:48PM

So, the movie is going to be about a bunch of characters, together for no particular reason, that run some random quests, bitch over who gets loot (I NEED THAT!), perform a bunch of time consuming tasks, and don't really accomplish anything.

After the 5 hour movie is over, the characters and the world and story are the same as they were, only each character has one new piece of gear actually worth using and a level up. Nothing legendary, just common gear with common stats, but different and slightly better than what they had before.

This is going to be the greatest movie evar.

THA1icarus @ Jun 27th 2007 5:19PM

Just no Uwe Boll...

Lemmiwinks @ Jun 27th 2007 5:43PM

Will Leeroy be in it?

Zsavior @ Jun 27th 2007 6:09PM

World of warcraft the movie will not go over well because blizzard refuses to create a good and or evil side.

While people will deal with it in the game, in a movie, the Green skinned Orc invaders,(and yes even though they were used they still invaded azeroth first)the human hating undead(that really want to turn all life into zombies), the power hungry Blood elves, the cannibalistic trolls, and the actual pure hearted Tauren are not going to make non-wow fans see a middle groud, or mis-understood misfits. They will only be seen as evil being tolerated, and people will hate it.

People complained about Pirates for the same reason, to much magic, blah blah blah. Long story short unless the horde is made to be evil, thus pissing off a large install base of WOW(not me cause I play ally)the movie will bomb.

James from BritPod @ Jun 28th 2007 12:28AM

I can't wait!!

Hopefully the movie will be repeatable. Then You can grind the movie, watching it constantly and build up enough reputation with your local cinema to enable the purchase of some slightly better boots and/or pants.

dave @ Jun 28th 2007 4:13AM

Anyone got any ideas of a story for it?

Rayonic @ Jun 28th 2007 8:41AM

WoW has plenty of story, no matter what the text-skipping ADHD sufferers say.

What I'm concerned with is where/when the story is taking place. Perhaps it could take place in an area that hasn't been accessible so far, like Gilneas. (south of that big wall in Silverpine Forest).

It'd be really neat if, after the movie was released, that section of the game opened up and you could see and play in the aftermath of the events of the movie.

phalphan @ Jun 28th 2007 10:53AM

Man,

Maybe I'm not good at math but if all 8 million users go see the movie multiple times I'm hard pressed to understand how they would be "screwed". I mean if multiple means at least twice and the tickets are at least % bucks (of course they're double that in most big cities) that's still a hundredd million opening weekend. I know...its nitpicky but that's why people shouldn't make crazy remarks in the first place. phalphan has spoken.