Duncan Jones says 'World Of Warcraft' could be first 'good' video game movie

Director Duncan Jones has said he is "hugely jealous" of Evil Dead creator Sam Raimi because he's directing the film adaptation of the videogame World of Warcraft. Raimi has been hired to tackle a big screen take on the fantasy Role Playing Game phenomenon, with the finished film expected in 2013.

Now Badass Digest reports that director, and son of David Bowie, Jones has claimed he's 'jealous' that Raimi is making the movie and not him.

He said: "I'm very cynical of the number of directors who say they're actual gamers. I'm a real gamer and I think there are less real gamers involved in directing only because you have to spend so much time making films that there's no time to be a hardcore gamer. I'm just slightly insane and I stay up all night playing games."

He added: "I'm hugely jealous of Sam Raimi. I really believe World of Warcraft could be the launch of computer games as good films. From the little I've read of interviews with him the way he's approaching it makes so much sense. It's not worrying about how the game plays, it's about creating the world of the game and investing the audience in that world."

Jones is currently developing two sequels to his 2009 hit Moon. His new movie Source Code, a science-fiction thriller staring actor Jake Gyllenhaal, is due to be released on April 15, 2011.

Box Office: Can 'Warcraft' Win the Battle Without the U.S.?

If prerelease tracking is right, Legendary Entertainment and Universal's Warcraft will only open to $22 million-$24 million in the U.S. this weekend, a poor showing considering its hefty net production budget of $160 million.

But the game is far from over for the adaptation of Activision Blizzard's classic video game.

Even if Warcraft underperforms in its North American run, the foreign box office could push it into the black, led by China, where Legendary and parent company Dalian Wanda are plotting the widest release of all time for the pic, which rolls out Wednesday night in the Middle Kingdom, a holiday. To boot, Warcraft is being released in a 3D run in China, where Wanda is the country's largest cinema owner.

As of Monday night, Warcraft had already racked up well north of $20 million in advance ticket sales in China, beating Avengers: Age of Ultron and fast approaching Furious 7, which ultimately earned $391 million at the Chinese box office, the top showing of all time for a Western release.

The apparent frenzy in China to see Warcraft — fans of the game are estimated to be at least 10 million strong — has prompted some box-office analysts to predict an opening in the $120 million-$150 million range.

And Warcraft has already amassed $75 million elsewhere at the foreign box office, where it has rolled out in 28 markets. It's doing especially well in Russia and Germany, earning $17.3 million and $10 million, respectively, in its first 11 days. And the 11-day total in France is a solid $7.8 million. This past weekend, it landed in the U.K. with $5.5 million, including previews.

Warcraft has 37 more countries in which to open, including China, South Korea and the U.S. Universal is distributing the tentpole everywhere except China, where it marks the first film released by Legendary in the Middle Kingdom since the production company was bought by Wanda earlier this year. As such, it's a defining moment for the Wanda-Legendary partnership. (China Film Group and Huaxia are the official distributors.)

Warcraft boasts a myriad of financial investors, reducing the risk for any one party. Those backing the movie include Legendary/Wanda, Universal and a raft of China companies, including Tencent Pictures, China Film Group, Beijing Taihe Entertainment Co. and Huayi Brothers Media Group.

With so much China money in the pot, the various parties are making sure Warcraft gets the biggest profile possible in theaters. It will play in a record-setting 67.5 percent of all theaters in mainland China, where there are some 39,000 screens (Furious 7 played in 62.8 percent).

There have been reports in local media about loyal gamers banding together to rent out whole cinemas for viewing parties in Shanghai and Shanxi province. And the film has sold out all of the 285 Imax midnight screenings being made available.

In the U.S., Warcraft will begin rolling out in theaters Thursday night before playing everywhere Friday. Tracking suggests it will lose the weekend to The Conjuring 2 and Now You See Me 2, although the race with the latter could be close. Warcraft has been skewered by critics and doesn't boast any A-list movie stars.

If it opens in the low $20 million range, box-office analysts project Warcraft will top out at $75 million domestically. To break even, it will likely need to gross at last $400 million worldwide, meaning an international gross of $325 million.

Thomas Tull's Legendary has been working with Blizzard to bring Warcraft to the big screen for a decade. Directed by Duncan Jones, the film stars Travis Fimmel, popular Hong Kong star Daniel Wu, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell, Ben Schnetzer and Robert Kazin.

'Warcraft' Cast Talks Bringing the Game to Life at the Film's Premiere



World of Warcraft has been one of Blizzard Entertainment’s most commercially successful games, but director Duncan Jones, believes this film will continue resonating with audiences, no matter how familiar they are with the source material.

The film premiered at The TCL Chinese Theatre, where Jones, who served as Warcraft's director and writer, was joined by the cast including Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Ben Schnetzer, Ruth Negga, Ryan Robbins and Toby Kebbell on Tuesday.

"For anyone who has played Warcraft for any amount of time, it feels like a real place to them," Jones told The Hollywood Reporter. "We tried to create an Azeroth that feels like home for those fans. People are really going to feel like it’s a movie that belongs to them."

The film’s digital effects took center stage at the premiere. “The game is a phenomenon for a reason, and getting to dive into it head first with the resources available that we had, it was amazing to get lost in this world," said Schnetzer, who added that though the film also used practical sets, "we did a lot of CGI, and that really takes a huge leap of imagination, because you don’t know what it’s going to look like, they’re just telling you ‘monsters are chasing you’ and you really have to try and sell it."

"For the fans, you just hope that they all come in and dream the same dream and really escape the reality," said Patton. "It was just fun to be part of the journey, and it was one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”

Toby Kebbell, who plays the Orc Durotan, added: “It truly is a film for fans and introducing new fans to this film.”

Warcraft premieres June 10.

Box Office: 'Warcraft' Soars to Record $90M-Plus in China

Video game adaptation Warcraft continues to break records, earning $44.5 million-$46.5 million on Thursday to bring its two-day total to $90.6 million-$92.2 million, according to estimates.

That marks the biggest Thursday of all time, beating box-office sensation The Mermaid and accounting for 81 percent of all ticket sold. And on Wednesday, the Legendary and Universal tentpole earned a record $46 million on its first day of play in China, the best opening day for a non-weekend release.

According to Legendary, Warcraft has become the fastest film to cross $90 million.

Heading into its China opening, analysts predicted that the pic could earn $120 million-$150 million in its five-day debut. At this pace, those estimates could be low.

In the U.S., however, the forecast is hardly as bright, with tracking suggest a launch in the $22 million-$24 million range, a muted start considering the movie's net budget of $160 million. But even if Warcraft underperforms in its North American run, the foreign box office could push it into the black, led by China.

Warcraft has already amassed $75 million elsewhere at the foreign box office, where it has rolled out in 28 markets. It is doing especially well in Russia and Germany, earning $17.3 million and $10 million, respectively, in its first 11 days. And its 11-day total in France is a solid $7.8 million. This past weekend, the film landed in the U.K. with $5.5 million, including previews.

Warcraft has 37 more countries in which to open. Universal is distributing the tentpole everywhere except China, where it marks the first film released by Legendary in the Middle Kingdom since the production company was bought by Wanda earlier this year. As such, it's a defining moment for the Wanda-Legendary partnership. (China Film Group and Huaxia are the official distributors.)

Warcraft boasts a myriad of financial investors, reducing the risk for any one party. Those backing the movie include Legendary/Wanda, Universal and a raft of China companies, including Tencent Pictures, China Film Group, Beijing Taihe Entertainment Co. and Huayi Brothers Media Group.

With so much China money in the pot, the various parties are making sure Warcraft gets the biggest profile possible in theaters. It is playing in a record-setting 67.5 percent of all theaters in mainland China, where there are some 39,000 screens (Furious 7 played in 62.8 percent).

In the U.S., Warcraft will begin rolling out in theaters Thursday night before playing everywhere Friday. Tracking suggests it will lose the weekend to The Conjuring 2 and Now You See Me 2, although the race with the latter could be close. Warcraft has been skewered by critics and doesn't boast any A-list movie stars.

Thomas Tull's Legendary has been working with Blizzard to bring Warcraft to the big screen for a decade. Directed by Duncan Jones, the film stars Travis Fimmel, popular Hong Kong star Daniel Wu, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell, Ben Schnetzer and Robert Kazin.

I thought nothing in the world could convince me to see this, but all the reviews comparing it to Battlefield Earth have made me cave. I'm seeing it tonight.

With that kind of box office, I wonder if companies will consider making actors perform their lines in both English and Chinese so they can release a true Chinese language version.

With that kind of box office, I wonder if companies will consider making actors perform their lines in both English and Chinese so they can release a true Chinese language version.

How 'Warcraft's' Visual Effects Wizards Brought Thousands of Orcs To Life

Making Warcraft was the “first time my experience playing video games has paid off," admits two-time Oscar-winning VFX supervisor Bill Westenhofer. I was a Warcraft addict when it was in beta."

His prior work has resulted in Oscars for creating the famously photo-real CG tiger in Life of Pi as well as the CG polar bears in The Golden Compass. For the new film, opening today from Legendary and Universal, he was tasked with delivering the epic world of Warcraft — Blizzard Entertainment's popular role-playing fantasy video game franchise — complete with a cast of CG Orcs, surrounding environments and all-enveloping magic, driven by VFX house Industrial Light & Magic.

“We wanted to make something that the people who knew the world would feel comfortable in. We wanted them to feel right at home,” Westenhofer told The Hollywood Reporter of the Duncan Jones-directed film. "Even if the environments look real, the proportions tend to be large. That steered us to live set-builds and CG extensions."

“We wanted it to look like real brick or trees, and scaled to the Warcraft world,” he added. “We were taking the game's aesthetic and design cues.”

And, of course, there was the challenge of the Orcs, which live in the world alongside the humans. “Motion capture was the way to go, but Duncan wanted to get as close to a live-action experience as we could,” Westenhofer said, explaining that they employed a system shooting motion-capture with the actors so that they could see the actors as Orcs, in the environments, in real time during production.

“The facial performances is where I think ILM sets a new benchmark,” he added. “Usually facial capture systems give you a starting point. ILM’s Medusa system was a straight one-to-one transfer. It helped that they were anthropomorphic. There was very little animation interpretation to get the performance.”

The Orcs and their costumes were additionally challenging due to looks that involved hair, fur and textures such as leather, “all of which require intense simulation to move properly."

And consider that there were 14 hero Orcs and another 30-40 variations for generic Orcs. In some battle shots, in excess of 1,000 Orcs were required. “The simulation and rendering time on a single computer would have taken 30,000 years of rendering time,” Westenhofer estimated.

The busy VFX supervisor — whose next film is the 2017 release Wonder Woman — also wanted to give Warcraft a “sophisticated and unique style” of magic.

So in some of the live-action photography, “the actors would wear an LED light that would illuminate [the actors and parts of the set] to show when magic was being. We’d also use blasts of air on the set to further affect the environment. Where we could, we’d design the spell so those who play Warcraft might recognize it."

One last item of note for game-players: Westenhofter brought the amphibious Murloc to the film as his “gift for the fans."

"There wasn’t a plan to put this in," he says. "I dusted off my [animation] chops and got a software package called Blender, created it and put in the [film]. As a fan I wanted to put in the experience.”

Legendary Sells 'Warcraft' China Online Rights For Record Sum

Warcraft continues to break records in China.

After smashing a number of box office marks upon debut, Warcraft's online streaming rights for the China market have sold for a record sum for a foreign title THR has confirmed.

China's PPTV has secured the exclusive rights to Legendary Entertainment's long in the works adaptation of the video game phenomenon. Legendary confirmed the fee was a record but declined to reveal figures. Variety first reported the news.

Despite its tepid U.S. box office and mixed reviews, Warcraft has taken on event movie status in China where it opened with a record shattering $156 million in just five days.

Warcraft has also made an impression in other foreign markets such as Germany and Russia and its global total stood at $286.1 million through Sunday. Costing $160 million to make, Warcraft needs to earn $450 million or more to break even.