By Mark Pollard | Published October 15, 2009

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN scribe Robert Rodat has been hired to write the live-action film based on Blizzard’s WORLD OF WARCRAFT massive multiplayer online game. He will be joining Sam Raimi who is already signed to supervise development and direct the feature after he completes SPIDER-MAN 4.

WARCRAFT: ORCS AND HUMANS was first released in 1994 for Mac and PC as a real-time strategy game set in a fictional fantasy realm where two factions, Alliance and Horde, waged war for supremacy. Blizzard released four sequels before embarking on their online iteration which was released in 2004. WOW has since become the most successful MMO to date with paying subscribers in excess of 10 million.

Back in 2007, Blizzard stated that the film would be a “war movie” with a budget of $100 million and set a year before the initial events depicted in WORLD OF WARCRAFT. They also stated that it would be developed for a PG-13 audience.

Both the RTS and MMO versions of the game share a distinctly comic visual style, a measure of dry humor and a high degree of polish which will probably all find their way into the movie.

It’s hard to imagine at this point what the fighting action will look like in a live setting. Given the colorfully stylized tone of the game’s visuals, Blizzard’s attention to detail with regard to animating fighting moves and Sam Raimi’s past experience with visuals effects I would imagine we’ll see a lot of digitally enhanced super heroics akin to what’s been presented in the SPIDER-MAN franchise and Peter Jackson’s LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. It should be more than just swordplay and magic as Blizzard also incorporated crude ballistics, war machinery and gunpowder use into their fictional world.

Source: Variety

Related Topics:
upcoming  •  Warcraft (2011)