wow Warcraft Movie Director's Original Plans for a Trilogy and Beyond

[Starym 3,783]

 

We got some more details surrounding the Warcraft movie directly from director Duncan Jones, as he shared his original plans for a trilogy, and even potential movies after that that would be handled be other directors (and focus on the other major Warcraft lore). The two sequels were going to follow a fairly faithful chronological tracking of the Warcraft lore, with the first focusing on Thrall's time in the human internment camp (basically the Lord of the Clans cancelled adventure game) and the second covering the orc liberation and journey to Kalimdor.

A fair question and a brief answer.
Yes. I had three films I would have loved to make for the first “story” before handing the reins to someone else for the better known Warcraft lore.
This is a VERY brief summary of what films 2 & 3 would have been built around. https://t.co/MctrxIKinh

— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) June 21, 2020

three, the gathering horde army and freeing of orcs around the Eastern kingdom before a dangerous trip across the sea to Kalimdor, & the founding of the 1st Azerothian city of Orgrimmar.

Basically the trilogy was the fulfilling of Durotan’s promise to give his people a new home.

— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) June 21, 2020

Unfortunately there are still no plans for even a sequel to the Warcraft movie, due to its poor box office returns in the US, despite the fact that it was quite popular in international markets, particulary China. Jones even commented on the production team that worked on the movie with him on the Blizzard side aren't even at the company anymore:

I have no idea, and no one i worked with on the film even works at Blizzard anymore.

— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) June 21, 2020

[Arcling 887]

I guess it's good it didn't come to pass. What was a tauren doing at Blackmoore's camp?! Why it wouldn't be Medivh to tell Thrall to sail to Kalimdor. Doesn't make any sense.

[durdyenglish 298]

25 minutes ago, Arcling said:

I guess it's good it didn't come to pass. What was a tauren doing at Blackmoore's camp?! Why it wouldn't be Medivh to tell Thrall to sail to Kalimdor. Doesn't make any sense.

Agreed, the movie already veered away from the source material in such an awkward way. Warcraft 1-3 was prime Blizzard story-telling, trying to so dramatically re-imagine it would only hurt the product.

The above plot arc seems to complete erase the Second War and shatters the original premise of Warcraft 3 and the Third War. While I enjoyed a lot of the Duncan Jones movie, I cannot endorse his final interpretation of the Warcraft Universe in that film or these conceptual sequels. 

Edited June 27, 2020 by durdyenglish

[Alkasar 55]

27 minutes ago, Arcling said:

I guess it's good it didn't come to pass. What was a tauren doing at Blackmoore's camp?! Why it wouldn't be Medivh to tell Thrall to sail to Kalimdor. Doesn't make any sense.

This was a very short answer. It seems that Blackmoore would have been an excentric who houses different creatures and therefore also has a reason to raise Thrall between imprisoned Murlocs and unknown creatures from far lands, like the Tauren.

They could still bring Medivh back for the third movie who tells Thrall to move to Kalimdor. After he met the Tauren in the dungeons he would have a better reason to trust Medivh, who appears to be a human. A race who just raged war against his people and imprisoned him.

In the game he just listenes to Medivh because of some dreams. I don't think this would translate well in a movie.

Edited June 27, 2020 by Alkasar

[Alkasar 55]

4 minutes ago, durdyenglish said:

Agreed, the movie already veered away from the source material in an awkward way. Warcraft 1-3 was prime Blizzard story-telling, trying to so dramatically re-imagine it would only hurt the product.

Yes. Warcraft 1 at least had so little story that they could have followed it better. The Orcs destroying Stormwind. There is not much happening. But Warcraft 3 is a little overloaded with story. That one would not go well on screen compressed into 2 maybe 3 hours.

Edited June 27, 2020 by Alkasar

[durdyenglish 298]

4 minutes ago, Alkasar said:

Yes. Warcraft 1 at least had so little story that they could have followed it better. The Orcs destroying Stormwind. There is not much happening. But Warcraft 3 is a little overloaded with story. That one would not go well on screen compressed into 2 maybe 3 hours.

The idea that the First War didn't end in Pyrrhic victory is a shame. The end shot of the Alliance "victors" cheapened the entire narrative that there are no real winners in Warcraft, just people who live to fight another day.

[Valhalen 1,484]

The Warcraft movie could've been something good if it was an animated CGI movie. Blizzard is famous for making high quality cutscenes. Employ that talent and technology on a movie and you're set.

Actually, Warcraft is not something that can be told coherently in a 2 hour movie; a Warcraft animated series would work better because there are so many characters and stories. Game of Thrones was proof that you can have high budget series that look good.

[Cammykins 6]

Honestly, my issue with it was the whole thing with CGI and also the the story felt too short and pg for a Warcraft game, but thats besides movie retcons.

[Arcling 887]

26 minutes ago, Alkasar said:

This was a very short answer. It seems that Blackmoore would have been an excentric who houses different creatures and therefore also has a reason to raise Thrall between imprisoned Murlocs and unknown creatures from far lands, like the Tauren.

This sounds even worse, to be honest. Not sure how in these circumstances Thrall's meeting with former Warchief would have happened, if at all. Also, as durdyenglish mentioned, this possibly either completely skips Second War or erases it. Plus there is still an issue of Gul'Dan and Burning Legion, how and if they would have been adapted in this case.

[Badadada 184]

I can see why Jones tried to twist the plot and can't blame him for it. In the Warcraft universe the human's hate towards orcs is fueled by racism (pretty much the main driver of the Warcraft movie) and racism is a good-selling point towards Hollywood studios, especially nowadays. Filming about such social issues - even in a fantasy movie - can be decisive on which screenplay makes it to the cinemas and which remains in the drawer forever. The night elf or forsaken storyline don't include such motives, they would be harder to adapt to screen.

[GBeast 33]

for someone who was planning to faithfully follow the warcraft lore, he didn't follow it very faithfully at all

[Borgoff33 92]

1 hour ago, GBeast said:

for someone who was planning to faithfully follow the warcraft lore, he didn't follow it very faithfully at all

neither does Blizzard

[Ariecho 15]

Give us a StarCraft movie instead!

[GBeast 33]

4 hours ago, Borgoff33 said:

neither does Blizzard

hey look we got a smartypants here

obviously the guy means follow the main universe lore ya nincompoop

[Starym 3,783]

I think you guys are attributing a whole lot to Duncan Jones, when it seems pretty obvious to me that Blizzard's team at the very least OKed all his ideas or, IMO were the ones behind them almost entirely.

[Borgoff33 92]

2 hours ago, GBeast said:

hey look we got a smartypants here

obviously the guy means follow the main universe lore ya nincompoop

no such thing as "main universe lore" we have book lore and game lore both vastly different and blizz changes them both all the time

[POTATOEMPN 1]

Is it not about time for people to finally admit that the movie was really not great? It was okay at best. Visually stunning, sure, but the quality of the movie was sub-par.

Maybe Blizzard will wise up and just finally their the Expansion Cinematic style graphics, and just make a movie....or, 100000x better, turn Warcraft into a show. Think Game of Thrones, but Warcraft....Imagine how amazing that would be, to see the Warcraft lore unfold the way it should have, instead of just randomly jumbling stuff together in the ramshackle way it was presented with the movie.

I promise you, it would turn out a million times better than the movie, and people would be absolutely engrossed with watching it.

[Pandabuffel 153]

On 6/27/2020 at 5:38 PM, Valhalen said:

The Warcraft movie could've been something good if it was an animated CGI movie. Blizzard is famous for making high quality cutscenes. Employ that talent and technology on a movie and you're set.

This. Ever since all the cinematics of Saurfang I've been longing for a full movie of it. If done properly I personally think it can actually be quite the success. Probably should focus on a different part of the lore though. Dunno, maybe start off easy and for example go with Illidan since he's already a loved character and will definitely pull people in (though, there is the danger of butchering it upsetting a lot of fans).

[Valhalen 1,484]

11 hours ago, Pandabuffel said:

This. Ever since all the cinematics of Saurfang I've been longing for a full movie of it. If done properly I personally think it can actually be quite the success. Probably should focus on a different part of the lore though. Dunno, maybe start off easy and for example go with Illidan since he's already a loved character and will definitely pull people in (though, there is the danger of butchering it upsetting a lot of fans).

If anything, I think the story of Warcraft would be better told as series, because trying to compile a bunch of plotlines in a 2 hour movie simply doesn't work, specially when you consider how large the cast of characters in the Warcraft universe is.

Game of Thrones set a new bar for quality in TV series, and today you got a bunch of high budget fantasy series on platforms like Netflix (i.e. The Witcher), as well very competent animated series with impressive quality (i.e. Love, Death & Robots).

So yeah, I think that a Warcraft CGI animated series would be perfect. That would also allow the use of the well known voice actors that do work for the games to reprise their roles. For instance, can you imagine Thrall and Jaina with any other voices other than Laura Bailey's and Chris Metzen's, respectively?

[War93 1]

Warcraft story lines cannot be adequately told in a movie format so any movies about Warcraft would be a disservice to the source material, what they need to do is make an epic fantasy series, a bit like Game of Thrones... Warcraft has such amazing story it deserves to be told in a format that isn't a game... especially when the MMO game has such a poor ability to story tell (with the exclusion of Legion because that xpac had some amazing storytelling) I think it'd be an excellent way to "invest" in Warcraft universe as well, as if I was watching the T.V. show I would end up having to play Warcraft III or World of Warcraft I would want to try and experience the on screen story in game... not to mention it could open them up to other options for Warcraft games if they so desired... I am sure Netflix would take the risk of adapting the story into a series, hell I bet Amazon would as well, and those are just streaming services HBO still needs something post GoT... 

 

Long story short... Do a Series not a movie, not multiple movies, a series as thats the best way to tell the story while being true to the amazing source material...

[Pandabuffel 153]

8 hours ago, Valhalen said:

If anything, I think the story of Warcraft would be better told as series, because trying to compile a bunch of plotlines in a 2 hour movie simply doesn't work, specially when you consider how large the cast of characters in the Warcraft universe is.

Very true, but I'm not sure you want to go through every single story line. I think the way to go with a movie is to focus on one particular storyline and see how it goes. It's basically how Lord of the Rings also focusses on one big story line, but the world of LotR has a ton more to offer than the story most people know. For example: We never saw how Sauron got to his position or who he was (most people don't even know he used to work for Morgoth and think Sauron is the biggest evil ever). Yet, that movie trilogy is still considered by a lot of people as one of the best ever.

The problem with series is that I'm afraid storylines will be rushed or negated because they have to move on with the series. If you want to put every single storyline of Warcraft in a series it would be a mumbo-jumbo of different time periods and way too much to handle. In the end it'll have the same grave mistake as most other big series: It'll go on too long.

You named Game of Thrones as a new bar of quality, but don't forget how that series ended. Right now almost nobody talks about GoT anymore and when they do it's mostly about the terrible last seasons, not about the time when it was still good. Breaking Bad ended years before and yet many people still talk about it and how good it was. I wouldn't set Game of Thrones as a new bar of quality as I really hope a series about Warcraft wouldn't end the same.

[Valhalen 1,484]

2 hours ago, Pandabuffel said:

Very true, but I'm not sure you want to go through every single story line. I think the way to go with a movie is to focus on one particular storyline and see how it goes. It's basically how Lord of the Rings also focusses on one big story line, but the world of LotR has a ton more to offer than the story most people know. For example: We never saw how Sauron got to his position or who he was (most people don't even know he used to work for Morgoth and think Sauron is the biggest evil ever). Yet, that movie trilogy is still considered by a lot of people as one of the best ever.

The problem with series is that I'm afraid storylines will be rushed or negated because they have to move on with the series. If you want to put every single storyline of Warcraft in a series it would be a mumbo-jumbo of different time periods and way too much to handle. In the end it'll have the same grave mistake as most other big series: It'll go on too long.

You named Game of Thrones as a new bar of quality, but don't forget how that series ended. Right now almost nobody talks about GoT anymore and when they do it's mostly about the terrible last seasons, not about the time when it was still good. Breaking Bad ended years before and yet many people still talk about it and how good it was. I wouldn't set Game of Thrones as a new bar of quality as I really hope a series about Warcraft wouldn't end the same.

Yeah, I can agree with your concern, but going through the Lord of the Rings route might not be the best option, since the plot itself is pretty simple: destroy the ring. Sure, you have other subplots there for other characters, but it is fundamentally converged into that single goal.

For instance, Game of Thrones tackled on multiple storylines at the same time and it worked pretty darn well. You have a bunch of characters with their own plots, and there isn't really a main character. Also, dismissing the series as a whole just because the way it ended is very unfair in my opinion. Until the few last seasons, the series was great and had compelling storylines and very well written characters. It ended the way it did because they ran out of books, pretty much. Other than that, it still is one of the best series ever, and that can't be denied. It is more about the journey than the conclusion.

I agree that it is not necessary to go through every single story line; not everything needs to be explained. If it was to be made in series format, having each season follow an expansion with some few extra storylines intertwined could probably work. For instance, if the Warcraft movie was actually made into a series, they could've fleshed out the characters way better, rather than trying to shove a bunch of characters, plotlines and easter eggs in 2 hours.

But yes, I think a series shouldn't overstay its welcome with never ending plotlines to the point they lose relevance (i.e. Supernatural), and that would probably be the case with Warcraft, since we're still getting expansions and more plotlines.

Edited June 29, 2020 by Valhalen