Director Sam Raimi, who was originally attached to direct the “World of Warcraft” film, has said that Blizzard “mismanaged” the pre-production stages of the film when he was on-board, writes Eddie Makuch for Gamespot on March 7.
Raimi, best known as the director of the original “Spider-Man” trilogy and the “Evil Dead” trilogy, as well as the new “Oz: The Great and Powerful,” was originally attached to direct the “World of Warcraft” film, based on Blizzard Entertainment’s hit video game series.
"First, they asked me if I wanted to make it,” Raimi recounts, “and I said, 'Yes, I love World of Warcraft, and I think it would make a great picture.' So I read a screenplay they had that was written by the guys at [Warcraft developer] Blizzard, and it didn't quite work for me. I told them I wanted to make my own original story with ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and ‘The Patriot’ writer Robert Rodat, so we pitched it to Legendary and they accepted it, and then we pitched it to Blizzard, and they had reservations, but they accepted it."
After this “approval,” Rodat and Raimi went on writing a screenplay based on the game. It took several months, but it was done. And when it was, Raimi came to a startling realization: “They had never quite approved the original story we pitched them. Those reservations were their way of saying, 'We don't approve this story, and we want to go a different way,' so after we had spent nine months working on this thing, we basically had to start over.
“And Robert did start over,” Raimi continues, “but it was taking too long for the people at Blizzard, and their patience ran out. Honestly, I think it was mismanagement on their behalf, not to explain to us that the first story was vetoed long ago. Why did they let us keep working on it? Were they afraid to tell me?"
Blizzard was not able to comment on this news. But chief creative operator Rob Pardo did say something, tweeting, “I don't want to create controversy, but there are two sides to every story…"
Director Duncan Jones, of “Moon” fame, is now directing the adaption. The film has a budget north of $100 million, and has an intended release date of 2015.
For more information, check out Eddie Makuch’s article on Gamespot.
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