14 DAY TRIAL // Again, just to make sure you all breathe easy, the World of Warcraft movie is not directed by Uwe Boll. Although it seems he might have had something to do with the concept. But there is a World of Warcraft live action movie in production. Which could prove a good thing. Or a bad one, depending on how it turns out.
Uwe Boll has confessed to MTV his sadness as he was rejected by Blizzard when he proposed a movie based on the popular MMO. The disappointment was compounded by the fact that the rebuttal was especially harsh. According to Boll, "I got in contact with Paul Sams of Blizzard, and he said, 'We will not sell the movie rights, not to you... especially not to you'". Well, that got to hurt. Boll also added "Because it's such a big online game success, maybe a bad movie would destroy that ongoing income, what the company has with it".
The move is smart on behalf of Blizzard, especially if we look back at the titles of movies based on games that Uwe Boll directed. Names like BloodRayne, Alone in the Dark, Postal, House of the Dead, Dungeon Siege all point to box office flops and critically weak movies. But Uwe himself seems determined to show the world his skills as a director. A new Boll movie, based on Far Cry, is due for release soon.
The World of Warcraft movie that's currently in production is set to be a "war epic" that depicts the earlier stages of the fight between the Alliance and the Horde. It will not touch the World of Warcraft MMO directly and will feature characters taken from all the races, with the main character being, most likely, a human hero "with a unique destiny", as Chris Metzen, who is in charge of story creation at Blizzard, revealed at BlizzCon last year. The producers are Legendary Pictures, the people that have also produced 300 and Batman Begins, and the movie will cost in excess of 100 million dollars.
It seems that it currently has no designated cast and no director. Also Uwe Boll will be served with a restriction order if he tries to contact the producers and offers his services again.