The Warcraft Movie – A Flop or the Future? - Garrett Fuller at MMORPG.com

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The Warcraft Movie – A Flop or the Future? - Garrett Fuller at MMORPG.com

Movies made from video games are an extremely risky business. Games give the fan something a movie never can, the ability to play in that world. It hits on way more of your human senses than just sitting in a theater staring up at the big screen. As much as the past three major generations have grown up on movies, I think we are finally starting to see the first true generation who care more about interactive entertainment, than just viewing entertainment.

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ButeoRegalis

If there ever was a movie that deserved the genius of Uwe Boll, this surely is it.

jesteralways

I hope it suffers a flop, blizzard really need to wake up...

grimal

This has train wreck written all over it.

jesteralways

grimal said:

This has train wreck written all over it.

i hope it is, Blizzard has become too comfortable on top spot for so long, they need a major bamboo up their ass to wake up and start improving WoW.

Talmien

The stories told in Warcraft I, II, II, and WoW are interesting and fun, for games. But they are no Lord of the Rings. Combined with using real actors instead of staying with the CGI videos and voice actors that everyone is used too... I just don't think its going to do that well.

barasawa

Movies based on video games have a horrible track record, but then again, most of them were made by Ewe Boll. If nothing else, this movie at least has two legs up on that, so long as Duncan Jones isn't a believer in Bolls style, which looks very unlikely. Anyone else remember the reports of Blizz laughing at Boll when he tried to talk them into letting him do the movie? I don't know if the report was true, but there sure seemed to be a lot of sighs of relief from the news that Boll wouldn't be allowed anywhere near that project.

laserit

Whether the movie comes from a game, or the game comes from a movie is irrelevant.

It all comes down to whether the movie or the game is any damn good.

nbtscan

I think Blizzard would have done better to just make an entire CGI movie like the cutscenes in their games, but then I guess it wouldn't have the broad appeal of a semi-realistic movie and would probably just be dubbed a cartoon.

Movies based on video games haven't done well in the past.  Maybe this one will finally pull through and achieve some level of success, but I have my doubts.

Albatroes

If the movie was all in CGI like their cinematics, I'd watch it

Sovrath

laserit said:

Whether the movie comes from a game, or the game comes from a movie is irrelevant.

It all comes down to whether the movie or the game is any damn good.

I absolutely agree. As the poster above states, "Guardians of the Galaxy" to people not familiar with those characters or heck, even super hero "stuff" might seem incredibly silly. Yet it was a really good summer movie.

cerulean2012

It is to early to say if it is a flop or the future. Movie isn't even out yet. Hasn't been screened by any critics (although if they say it is bad then it stands a good chance of being good). Regardless if anyone wishes it to be a flop or not is irrelevant at this time.

elocke

Resident Evil. I love the series, some may not agree that they are good movies, but you don't have 5 movies based on a video game if they suck. So, there's that at least. We already have a Dungeon and Dragons movie coming and if people say "aren't those orcs from Lord of the Rings?" well that's most likely not your target audience. The world has heard of World of Warcraft. It's been all over the main stream news for 10 years so it won't be an issue of not knowing what it's coming from. The only thing that will hurt the movie is the movie itself. After being pleasantly surprised by Jurassic World, Universal is on a huge win/win streak lately and I think we might all be surprised by Warcraft the movie. If we aren't, then nothing has really changed and it won't hurt WoW at all. Can't wait. For now though, I'm more excited about the new Star Wars heheh as it's much closer.

Amathe

I read some of the Warcraft books long ago and enjoyed them. This movie might be good too. I just think if they were going to do this, doing it when the game was at its peak popularity might have been better?

garrett

While I do remain positive, I honestly think this could flop badly. I just think WoW is not what it used to be 6-8 years ago. Feel like it is too little too late.

Nickhead420

If I do end up seeing the flick, it'll be from the comfort of home. But even then it'll be from Netflix or some streaming site that we're not supposed to use. It's not going to flop though. People still play that were threatening to quit 7 years ago. Regardless of reviews, people will flock to this one.

Sovrath

garrett said:

While I do remain positive, I honestly think this could flop badly. I just think WoW is not what it used to be 6-8 years ago. Feel like it is too little too late.

I'm not really sure that should matter.
I would go so far as to say "so what" to WoW players as far as the demographic. And let me explain ...

Let's say WoW still retained the largest amount of subscribers. So what would that be? 10 million or 11 million or so?

A movie like this needs to sell far more than that to actually be a success. To put it in perspective, Dark night sold over 75 million tickets in 2008, 2002 Spiderman over 69 millions tickets, etc.

So the WoW movie needs to reach far more than who would be considered WoW players. The movie needs to reach the general audience. Just making the movie for 10 million (or less) ticket buyers doesn't seem wise.

So again, it doesn't matter that WoW is not what it used to be. What matters is that the movie is compelling enough to sell several times over what their subscriber base is.

Granted there are going to be people who see the movie several times but it would seem odd to bank on that.

Sovrath

elocke said:

Resident Evil. I love the series, some may not agree that they are good movies,

I actually liked the first two Resident Evil movies (and own them). I also liked for what they were worth the Doom and Prince of persia movies. Again, for what they were worth. I didn't  go into them thinking "you better encapsulate the essence of the games or else!"

Even the Dungeons and Dragons movies are fun late night on Saturday affairs provided you can buy into the cheesiness. Sort of like the "so bad they are good" category.

Now, the Ewe Boll movies are just atrocious. Even the Bloodrayne movies are almost unwatchable. Well, the 2nd one is definitely unwatchable for me. I can sit through the first and the 3rd sort of has its charms but still difficult to sit through.

BillMurphy

The footage we were shown in BlizzCon was remarkable in how it captured emotion on CG orcs. But it was just a snippet of an overall greater film. I really hope it does well, and is awesome, but I'm not holding my breath.

mgilbrtsn

Good/Bad, I'm obligated to watch a sword and sorcery movie.  Thus, I hope it's good.  Don't understand why people would wish bad things on it.

Burntvet

This kind of thing is why Netflix was invented.

Buy an actual ticket to it?

Yeah, no.

orbitxo

successful mmo= flop in the cinema its already been dubbed a 'troubled film'

fivoroth

garrett said:

While I do remain positive, I honestly think this could flop badly. I just think WoW is not what it used to be 6-8 years ago. Feel like it is too little too late.

I don't think they are relying only on WoW players to watch it. I don't play WoW and I sure as hell I am going to see it.

fivoroth

By the way is there a point to this "article". It just makes up some random theories on what's going to happen. I was expecting some actual information/informative analysis but I guess I should've known better. Whether it will be a flop or not we will see. You don't need to be familiar with any of the source material to enjoy a movie. I have watched so many movies which are based on universes I know nothing about. Did that stop me from enjoying a quality movie? Nope. 

laserit

orbitxo said:

successful mmo= flop in the cinema its already been dubbed a 'troubled film'

My argument would be that the MMO itself will have nothing to do with the success or the failure of the film. It will be a success or a failure based on the writing, direction, talent and production quality of the film itself.


Who dubbed it a troubled film?

reeereee

The idea that you could get many times the Warcraft fan base to go see a Warcraft movie was always going to be a gamble. (Note the fan base is much larger than just current subscribers.)  Not that it wasn't possible but they should have had their eyes open to the fact that they were taking on a significant risk.


Now Universal thinks the movie is too nerdy?  Is Spielberg available?  Un-nerding Warcraft is a challenge I doubt even the best minds in the world are up to.