‘World Of Warcraft’ Movie: Legendary Pictures Doesn’t Want To Screw It Up

Legendary Pictures is hoping they don’t screw up the World of Warcraft movie.

Movies based on video games are usually crap. It’s just a fact, like water being wet. The problem with them is that video games generally don’t have the most intelligent stories attached to them, and the few that do aren’t the ones that casual gamers go for. Take a popular video game and turn it into a movie, and it’s likely not going to do well because the story is just not made for that format.

Doom, Street Fighter, Alone in the Dark, Max Payne and the ever notorious Super Mario Bros. all fell to the curse of video games that don’t translate well to the big screen. Even the pen and paper game Dungeons and Dragons was turned into a horrible movie with an equally awful sequel. Other films have done relatively well, such as the first Mortal Kombat, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and Resident Evil, but in each case, the sequels weren’t so lucky and ended up plain stupid.

The bad films outweigh the good by far, and Legendary Pictures wants to avoid that happening with their attempt at making World of Warcraft into a movie. Legendary Pictures is not taking the easy way out. They want the hour or two you spend in the theater to feel worth it. Studio head Thomas Tull commented on the film’s production:

“A lot of times what has happened in the past is, studios have said, ‘How many people play that game? Okay, then that means they’ll probably all go out and buy tickets.’ That is an incredibly poor way to make a movie. And so having Duncan Jones realize that for us was exciting. We’ve taken our time [developing this property], because we absolutely don’t want to screw it up. And I think we’re getting close to a place where we’re ready to go. And when the script is finished, and when we feel like, ‘Forget whether or not there’s a built-in audience. Does this stand on its own, and is it great?’ Then we’ll start filming. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re under suspicion of going there.”

Legendary Pictures isn’t banking on the WoW game fans going out and buying tickets, especially since there is no guarantee that World of Warcraft will even have a fan base by the time it’s released. They want to make the movie good, and that gives us hope.

What do you think of Legendary Pictures trying to make the World of Warcraft movie worth watching? Would you see it even if the game was no longer popular?