The latest Blizzcon welcomed us with the new first World of Warcraft movie trailer. WoW subscriptions are at an all time low (“only” 5.5 million according to Blizzzard in the same convention). This doesn’t concern the director, who expects the movie to change the videogame to movie adaptation landscape.

 

Duncan Jones, the film’s director, wants to focus on the early installments of the lore – that is, back to the human vs orcs story from the original Warcraft, where, fleeing from their dying world, the orcs arrive through a portal to at the human world of Azeroth. From there, the franchise grew to include many other factions, namely elves, undeads and pandas; who might have their spotlight time in the upcoming sequels for the film.

According to an interview with The Guardian, Duncan has been an avid gamer and fan of the franchise since his childhood, where he used the videogame world to find a familiar and comfortable place to go when the busy, ever-moving lifestyle of his father (David Bowie, no less) didn’t allow for it in the real world.

On the same interview, Duncan admits he hopes to “give people a sense of why so many people play and care about the game”. He also will refrain from the usual “good vs. evil” plots, instead presenting a story with heroes and villains on both sides (quite the challenge, seeing the usual portrayal of orcs in fantasy works).

https://twitter.com/warcraftmovie/status/662300718112464900/photo/1

 

Speaking about the subject of videogame and their usually horrible movie adaptations, in his own words, “it´s my generation´s opportunity to right that wrong”, and plans to do something akin to the comic movie’s “renaissance” from recent years.

 

Warcraft: The Beginning has been under production since 2013, when Legendary Pictures approached Duncan to produce the first one of their new movie universe. The “World of Warcraft” film, however, has been under wraps since 2008 (when it still dominated the online-subscription game scene with more than 12 million players). Duncan replaced Sam Raimi, who you might remember from the 2000s Spider Man trilogy.

The film is only the first one in Activision Blizzard Studios project – this new media division’s plan consist of a giant cinematic universe like that of Marvel and DC, which right now also includes an upcoming Call of Duty movie and a Skylandres TV show (Skylanders Academy).

Warcraft: The Beginning is set to hit theaters June 10, 2016, from the hand of Universal Pictures. You can follow it on Tweeter.