Box-Office Analysis: 'Warcraft' Avoids "Utter Failure" But Will Still Lose Money

[anyaka21]

Might just be me, but I think it was released just too late in the Warcraft lifespan. Had they done this 4 years ago, it would've had a bigger impact.

Add that, it wasn't a new story, but a rehash of the Garona storyline, kinda made it fall a little flat, at least for me.

[Gref]

In theaters in Japan july 1. Japan will save the movie!

[Tackhisis]

a rehash of the Garona storyline, kinda made it fall a little flat

Well, at least it makes some sense now. The canon story was OK in Warcraft 1, but got more and more weirder as time passed.

[Bosen]

I think that's the problem in the US, most fans have read the novels.

I doubt that.

[Slybak]

Which is part of the problem. People who don't play WoW have a stigma against the Warcraft franchise. For JoeSixPack, the Warcraft movie is for losers and doesn't want to be associated with them. But hey, Lord of the Rings was a cool movie to JoeSixPack.

Lord of the Rings wasn't narratively incoherent. If JoeSixPack asks you "So, uh, why did that wizard guy betray everyone, and how did that king guy know that the other orcs would like that female orc if she killed him, and why the fuck was Glenn Close in that big box, and what the fuck was with that demon thing?" - which are all critical pieces of the plot - and your answer is "Well, it makes more sense in the video game," or "it'll make more sense when you watch the sequel," then you have to accept the fact that you're dealing with a poorly constructed movie.

[Arkthugal]

They have 15 years of build-up on Azeroth and constant reinforcements in Warcraft 2. Trolls didn't join the Horde until it pushed quite far into Lordaeron.

And what would stop them from getting that in the movie continuity?

[Deleted]

Lord of the Rings wasn't narratively incoherent. If JoeSixPack asks you "So, uh, why did that wizard guy betray everyone, and how did that king guy know that the other orcs would like that female orc if she killed him, and why the fuck was Glenn Close in that big box, and what the fuck was with that demon thing?" - which are all critical pieces of the plot - and your answer is "Well, it makes more sense in the video game," or "it'll make more sense when you watch the sequel," then you have to accept the fact that you're dealing with a poorly constructed movie.

Kind of weird people use LOTR as some kind of hypothetically perfect fantasy movie. It contains numerous additional scenes written by useless screenwriters that add nothing to the plot and greatly confuse and overburden nine hours of film.

Ask someone who hasn't read the books and is watching the "Fellowship..." for the first time what the difference between Saruman and Sauron is and then tell me how coherent the film is narratively.

[Slant]

Definitely didn't help that critics hit it so badly, quite often with very off the mark perceptions (like this insane discrepency here) that it had extremely poor theater releases. It was genuinely tricky to get into it; my first two choices in theaters didn't even touch it on opening night. That's a pretty substantial impact when your goal is to use a preset audience and there's a lot of people who would see it if it were convenient but wouldn't do a half hour drive for it.

The discrepancy isn't really that insane if you think about it. Warcraft was a movie aimed at a very specific audience. Who seriously thought anyone but people interested in WoW would go and see what neutrally looked at is just a cheap fantasy flick nobody else has any kind of reverence for?

Everyone knows Lord of the Rings... but Warcraft lore? Even half the WoW players don't actually care about the story. How's it supposed to pull a mass audience that needs to be grabbed by the hair and explained why this is a good movie?

So, now you have an indifferent target group and a small but enthusiastic target group. The first one won't go to the theatre while the second one is almost guaranteed to give good ratings, if only because of fanboism.

Nah man, that's not a discrepancy that's insane. It's a discrepancy that's expected.

Edit: And this is just another addition to a long, long list of movie adaptions of games that have failed at the box office.

[Stop Pretending]

It was just a big advertisement for WoW/Hearthstone etc ..... and it made money, and it was well received.

Seems that you are just a bit salty that it did exactly what it intended to do.

Well received? I don't think you fully understand what that term means.

[Deleted]

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/warcraft

32%
Generally unfavorable reviews
based on 40 Critics

85%
User Score
Universal acclaim
based on 2232 Ratings

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This happens a lot, critics are just very out of touch / political

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http://www.metacritic.com/movie/ghostbusters-2016

Ghostbusters movie

60%
Mixed or average reviews
based on 52 Critics

User Score 26%
Generally unfavorable reviews
based on 1037 Ratings

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Now watch both movies, decide for yourself

[Tackhisis]

Now watch both movies, decide for yourself

Warcraft rating is sinking.
Ghostbusters rating is raising.

You cannot cheat the system.

[Slybak]

Kind of weird people use LOTR as some kind of hypothetically perfect fantasy movie. It contains numerous additional scenes written by useless screenwriters that add nothing to the plot and greatly confuse and overburden nine hours of film.

Ask someone who hasn't read the books and is watching the "Fellowship..." for the first time what the difference between Saruman and Sauron is and then tell me how coherent the film is narratively.

1) I never read any of the LOTR books before seeing the first film, and I could perfectly well understand that Saruman and Sauron were different characters. I seriously doubt the average non-game-playing audience member of Warcraft could even name two characters after the credits started to roll.

2) It's not like Saruman randomly turned into a Balrog for no reason or Gandalf found a giant obsidian box at Minas Tirith with (an uncredited) Aulë the Smith inside who told him that Saruman had been working with Sauron for years. The choices Jackson's trilogy made to pare down Tolkien's books were neither critical to the plot nor to the audience understanding the basic narrative arc of any of the characters. Warcraft didn't much care about either of those things.

When the kindest thing that professional film critics said about the movie was "I dunno... if you play the video game you might like it," that wasn't a good sign.

[Elian]

I think their biggest mistake was Travis Fimmel and Paula Patton.

[zenkai]

Warcraft rating is sinking.
Ghostbusters rating is raising.

You cannot cheat the system.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ghostbusters_2016/ - 56% of users liked it

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/war...earch=warcraft - 78% of users liked it

I think Ghostbusters still have a way to go. I see it trending down because initially ghostbusters had 8.4 on IMDB and it is now 7.8


In the end none of this shit matters though, they did make a profit or they wouldn't be planning the next movie.

[Tackhisis]

they wouldn't be planning the next movie.

But we don't know this yet.

[Vash The Stampede]

Lord of the Rings wasn't narratively incoherent. If JoeSixPack asks you "So, uh, why did that wizard guy betray everyone, and how did that king guy know that the other orcs would like that female orc if she killed him, and why the fuck was Glenn Close in that big box, and what the fuck was with that demon thing?" - which are all critical pieces of the plot - and your answer is "Well, it makes more sense in the video game," or "it'll make more sense when you watch the sequel," then you have to accept the fact that you're dealing with a poorly constructed movie.

That's called backstory, and LOTR had missing explanations as well. We know why, but not because of the game. WoW does a horrible job explaining the lore in the game. But like some of us here, I would look up who is Medivh and why he's bat shit. In LOTR when you wanted to know more, you would read the books. I didn't even know who made the rings in LOTR until I played the game Shadow of Mordor.

But that doesn't matter, cause the people that saw the movie liked it. The people that didn't see it aren't asking why is Medivh a dick, and who that demon was, cause they didn't see it.

[Deleted]

1)

When the kindest thing that professional film critics said about the movie was "I dunno... if you play the video game you might like it," that wasn't a good sign.

No that wasn't the kindest thing they said about it. But in any case, you are as ignorant of normal critical practice as you are Tolkien if you think their opinion means shit.

They were never going to like a video game movie however good it was. They are entirely predictable. If Duncan Jones had wanted an Oscar then all he would have to do was use the same script apart from the place names and characters, making it about the modern refugee crisis with Gul'dan as a ISIS leader trying to corrupt some random impoverished immigrants making a better life in the west. As soon as worthiness was sprinkled all over it the latte-drinking bastards would be all over it, you know the way they praise every holocaust movie ever to the skies on the grounds of collective guilt however tedious it is.

[Slybak]

That's called backstory, and LOTR had missing explanations as well. We know why, but not because of the game. WoW does a horrible job explaining the lore in the game. But like some of us here, I would look up who is Medivh and why he's bat shit. In LOTR when you wanted to know more, you would read the books. I didn't even know who made the rings in LOTR until I played the game Shadow of Mordor.

Stuff like exposition about Celebrimbor being the one who forged the rings of power wasn't necessary for the films. Celebrimbor is only mentioned in the LOTR appendices, anyway, and even some of the biggest lore-building topics are only covered in The Silmarillion. I'm not talking about trivia, I'm talking about basic plot structure and character arc that's integral to telling a compelling story. Warcraft, as a film, was far more concerned with visual spectacle than either of those things.

No that wasn't the kindest thing they said about it. But in any case, you are as ignorant of normal critical practice as you are Tolkien if you think their opinion means shit.

They were never going to like a video game movie however good it was. They are entirely predictable. If Duncan Jones had wanted an Oscar then all he would have to do was use the same script apart from the place names and characters, making it about the modern refugee crisis with Gul'dan as a ISIS leader trying to corrupt some random impoverished immigrants making a better life in the west. As soon as worthiness was sprinkled all over it the latte-drinking bastards would be all over it, you know the way they praise every holocaust movie ever to the skies on the grounds of collective guilt however tedious it is.

You know what? Even though this is just a hodge-podge of petulant reactionary grievances, it still manages to be more coherent than Warcraft.

[Deleted]

Warcraft rating is sinking.
Ghostbusters rating is raising.

You cannot cheat the system.

It's really weird how you want your narrative to be true, regardless of reality

Well, not that weird, just delusional

Warcraft is an infinitely better movie than Ghostbusters, regardless of what the feminists at salon/huffpo/slate/etc would like to claim

Mind you, that isn't difficult - Ghostbusters is worse than Pixels (another video game based movie! -ish)

[Tackhisis]

Well, not that weird, just delusional

Warcraft was 8-something, now it is 7.4.
Ghostbusters were 4.1, not it is 5.3.

Warcraft is just a B movie with expensive (but not A+) CGI and some very expensive CGI characters.
Any serious A movie is better than it by default, because in A movie you have some standards of script and acting.