Gill Pringle
“I would hope it would be sooner rather than later,” Duncan Jones answered when asked about an ETA on a trailer for the highly anticipated Warcraft movie, based on the incredibly popular World of Warcraftgame published by Blizzard, who recently announced their Marvel-like step to become a film studio. “I know that doesn’t give you any information. I can’t say, but things are in the works and I think that we’ll see something hopefully soon and hopefully set the right impression from the start.”
You can decide for yourself below, as the trailer dropped this weekend, but just to give you a bit of context, Jones, who landed the gig after the initial director tapped to bring the gaming franchise to the screen, Sam Raimi dropped out because he was too busy on Alice Wonderland, described it this way: “Whereas the Lord of the Rings films are very much about good versus evil, with the humans being the good guys and the monsters being the villains; I wanted to tell a war story in a very modern way where you show how both sides of the conflict can both be right but just that there is no way around the conflict. And that’s what Warcraft is.”
Duncan Jones (famously David Bowie’s son, and also the director behind Moon and Source Code) is the first to admit that most every game that has ever been adapted for the screen has been “shitty!”, but he’s aiming to change that. He also described his awe at the set of Labyrinthwhich he visited when he father starred in that Jim Henson production; and that he pitched certain elements of the film as being akin to Sergio Leone’s classic Once Upon a Time in the West, in the sense of its multifarious protagonists.
“I believe we are doing it right,” he also said from the set in Canada. “And I think that we are putting in the effort and the time to get it right. We have an amazing opportunity and a company that we’re working with in Blizzard, who we’ve been working really closely with in creating this. The fact that it’s genre or not, whether it’s based on a video game or not, I’m making a war movie that’s telling the story from both sides of the conflict; and with real empathy and really rich characters on both sides. Doesn’t matter what kind of film it is, I don’t see those kinds of films very often; I don’t think they happen that often. Normally, the director invests in the hero and it’s them against the world. In this one we really are trying to split the audience’s loyalties between the two sides. I would love it if at the end of the movie people come out of the film and some of them really wish that the Orcs were successful at what they’re trying to do, and some of them wishing that the humans were successful, because that’s the way the film has been constructed and hopefully it’ll pay off that way.”
Jones assured us that he wants to the film to appeal to a mainstream audience, but at the same time paying respect to the many gamers who have waited years for a film version to be realised. “I know that there’s a lot of anticipation and excitement and trepidation about what a film will be,” he said. “I’m doing my best to come up with a film that is respectful to what the fans care about, and I’m surrounded by a lot of people here, whether it’s [visual effects supervisor] Bill Westenhofer or Rob Kazinsky [who plays Orgrim in the film], who are players of the game and keep me honest to the lore.”
And would he direct a sequel to such an expansive world that he’s helped create for the cinema? “I’ve had a unique and an amazing experience on this film, and I’m really proud of what we’re doing,” Jones said. “I think that if I can nail this film the way I want to, and the people who are responsible for it feel that I am doing the right thing, I would love to take the story forward, at least one more step.”
Warcraft is in cinemas from June 16, 2016.
