Blizzard: World of Warcraft movie has slowed, but still happening

Blizzard Entertainment took the stage here at Comic-Con in San Diego to talk about World of Warcraft-inspired merchandise, and when the topic of the WoW movie came up during the Q&A, Vice President of Creative Development Chris Metzen confirmed that though the process has slowed recently, the movie is still happening. Director Sam Raimi is still "very, very passionate" about getting the movie made, but Metzen said that a treatment is still being hammered out. If that gets approved, he said, then "hopefully it'll start moving very quickly, very soon."

Metzen and the rest of the panelists also talked about the next lore-based novel to be released -- it's called The Shattering, and will set up a lot of the events leading up to the Cataclysm expansion. Metzen cautioned the game's fans that there are "dark times ahead" for Azeroth with the return of Deathwing and quakes destroying large parts of the game world. "It's going to get rough out there for a while," he admitted. "But there's a plan. The great heroes always rise to the top."