Duncan Jones reveals what his story would have been for Warcraft 2

[HumbleDuck]

I actually liked the movie alot, it's sad if he doesn't get the chance for the sequel.

[Shiny212]

LOTR did it in three movies of 3+ hours each. That's roughly a whole season of GoT.

Guess what Lord of the rings Fellowship of the Ring is fucking amazing. NONE of them were 3 hours at theatrical release. It's a silly, silly excuse that they just couldnt fit a good story in the warcraft universe because "too much lore". Then GoT episode 1 or hell the first season should suck too shouldn't it.

Warcraft the movie was just poorly written, produced and sometimes acted. Lothar's son was ridiculous, the CGI orc characters were too close to uncanny valley, the Queen played her part horribly, everyone had horrible dialect coaches, story was tame and uninteresting and most importantly to an outsider of warcraft it wouldn't make very much sense.

The only saving grace for the film was that Warcraft fans get a euphoric trip in their fantasy land and Chinese consumers ate it up because they love western fantasy, regrettably, there aren't enough warcraft fans to carry a film domestically or even if you include Europe, and the success in China means little since less than half the money made by screening if there returns to producers.

I dunno if it was the studio's fault, Duncan Jones' fault or maybe even Blizzards fault, but they fracked it up.

[Guyviroth]

The amount of wrong in this thread is beyond staggering to the point that I was knocked off my mount after a single hit.

Here's a nice article from the same website the OP linked: https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2017/...n-of-warcraft/

The abridged version is the studio bigwigs cut a whole lot of crap (about 40 minutes of the movie, in fact) because it was too expensive, or they just didn't like/want it. In that article Duncan even goes on to say how much of the cut stuff was during the scripting stage i.e. before filming even started, and there was no chance of getting it back at all. Ironically most of the cut footage was mainly narrative--something that people bitch about the movie for having a lack of.

So... who's fault was it? Well, mainly the execs. It had nothing to do with time, and everything to do with money.

[baskev]

Actually that would be 7.6. And yes, some people liked the film while others did not. I'm talking about average critical reviews.

All official reviewers/critics:

Average Rating: 4.2/10
Reviews Counted: 196
Fresh: 54
Rotten: 142

top critics:

Average Rating: 3.6/10
Reviews Counted: 41
Fresh: 8
Rotten: 33

So 7.2 to 8.4 according to critics

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

All official reviewers/critics:

Average Rating: 4.2/10
Reviews Counted: 196
Fresh: 54
Rotten: 142

top critics:

Average Rating: 3.6/10
Reviews Counted: 41
Fresh: 8
Rotten: 33

So 7.2 to 8.4 according to critics

Where exactly are you getting the 7.2 and 8.4 from? Both of those sources are already out of 10. The only reason to double those numbers would be if they were out of 5.

And honestly...the fact that out of 196 reviews 142 of them are Rotten should tell you all you need to know. Almost 3/4 critics thought the movie was worth less than 6/10 (6 is the threshold between "Rotten" and "Fresh").

[Deleted]

The Warcraft movie was actually very good.

lul whut? it sucked.

[quras]

SNIP...

So... who's fault was it? Well, mainly the execs. It had nothing to do with time, and everything to do with money.

Perhaps in 10 or so years IF another movie is made we can get a director that has enough clout in to get his vision out there. Jones isn't that guy at this time.

Perhaps the execs saw how Metzen and Jones were pushing for that orc story so much more than a human story and they told themselves. I don't think this is going to sell well. We need to get more human involvement and that cutting of more orc changed Jones orc vision.
I highly doubt all that additional character scenes were human related. The story, revolving around orcs so much especially after the public at large has seen things like LotR for the past number of years. While not the same orcs, that wouldn't matter.

I would not be shocked to find out those in charge and in charge of the money thought that no matter what a warcraft fan might think.

[Deleted]

Well let's hope he won't make that movie. It sounds horrible and very boring. They should make a movie about Arthas and his acension to Lich King. Basicly the only storyline of WoW that's interesting enough.

[Deleted]

The Warcraft movie was actually very good.

Except it wasn't.

Translating the First War to the silver screen could've been piss easy if they went through with:
- Cutting the orcs free from corruption by having Orgrim overthrow Blackhand.
- Had the Horde succeed in destroying Stormwind.

Sadly, the movie did neither and thus nothing was resolved. Gul'dan still has the orcs under his sway and with Stormwind standing neither side won.

Jones made the rookie mistake of making the first movie about world building, which is quite frankly retarded. It can be an aspect of it, but never the soul focus.

[cuafpr]

based on what he said no.. just no. I think it would have done better had they stuck to the original RTS story set up for the movie. The orcs being a mostly unknown threat with more focus on the humans ... but with the final scene being the fall of stormwind and it burning in the distance like it did after the first war. Second movie would shift focus back to the horde and and of course end with the humans winning the second war.

[Guyviroth]

Perhaps in 10 or so years IF another movie is made we can get a director that has enough clout in to get his vision out there. Jones isn't that guy at this time.

Perhaps the execs saw how Metzen and Jones were pushing for that orc story so much more than a human story and they told themselves. I don't think this is going to sell well. We need to get more human involvement and that cutting of more orc changed Jones orc vision.
I highly doubt all that additional character scenes were human related. The story, revolving around orcs so much especially after the public at large has seen things like LotR for the past number of years. While not the same orcs, that wouldn't matter.

I would not be shocked to find out those in charge and in charge of the money thought that no matter what a warcraft fan might think.

There's only so much you can do as a director to get your vision across, because at the end of the day it's the top brass that hold the resources you need, be it money, equipment, and, most of all, your marketing. It's like if asking your boss for a pay rise had a Mythic difficulty.

And yeah, it could have done with more human involvement... except one of the proposed scenes that were cut was a narrative section during the meeting between the kingdoms about how they allied themselves during the Troll Wars, and so they should unite again during this invasion. The reason it was cut was because they'd have to spend X amount of millions of dollars for what was essentially a 30 second flashback. Now I think that's a smart call, but they could have at least extended some of the human narrative, which was either A) cut from the script, B) cut after production like several other scenes were, or C) not there to begin with. And at this point, we still don't know the full extent of what was cut.

But in any case, I would like to see Duncan Jones' sequel played out... if it wasn't solely focused on Thrall. You could have a Thrall side plot, with the main plot being the continuation of the invasion. Gul'dan mindfucks Garona so that she becomes the puppet voice to lead a second assault, while the humans stage their defense--Dalaran sends its wizards to teach the humans of stormwind their magics, Gilneas recedes from the alliance to wall themselves up, and Lothar and Orgrim have their final battle at Blackrock. Or something.

[Linri]

i really liked the orcs, as far as the humans, the armor looked like hard plastic... lol

[Ateo]

I liked the movie just as a Warcraft fan even though it was pretty flawed. But realistically I see no chance for a sequel. Sequels generally don't do as well as the 1st in a series, and the 1st one absolutely bombed in the US and was only saved by Asia to break even. I was amazed it didn't do better in the US than it did. It should have done much better even if just current and former wow players saw it. If you're the production company looking to invest, and the idea of putting up $200M of your money to invest in a sequel of a movie that bombed, that probably doesn't seem like a wise idea.

The best chance we'd have for another cinema release of a wow-related movie would be if Blizzard did a full-length cgi/animated movie like their expansion intros/cutscenes. But that would probably be expensive to make also. I suppose the other possibility would be if they went the family angle and did a movie-length kids cartoon in the Warcraft: Traveler children's book series vein, but that wouldn't really interest me too much.

I'd literally pay double a movie tickets price to see a full like 2 hour Warcraft cgi movie with the graphics of their intros. It's so fucking amazing. Make that Warcraft, Starcraft, or Diablo. Hit it with an R rating too and it could be so fantastic.

[Deleted]

So... who's fault was it? Well, mainly the execs. It had nothing to do with time, and everything to do with money.

No its Blizzards fault. they can do awsome cinematics and THAT TEAM should have made a NONE REAL ACTOR warcraft movie.

[McNeil]

If the sequel was really going to be mostly about an adolescent Thrall, I wouldn't mind missing this out. Thrall is as generic as it can get and has always been the most boring part of the orc lore imo. Also wouldn't Metzen have to voice him, who doesn't work for Blizzard anymore? Instead I would rather see a proper sequel where the first movie left off where the orcs prepare for a major invasion towards Stormwind, raze the city to the ground and the next half of the movie is the humans of Stormwind fleeing to Lordaeron. If there's time left we might even get to see the orcs invade Lordaeron aswell, only to be defeated where the humans also regain control of Stormwind. They can introduce characters like Terenas, Uther and a young Arthas to set up the 3rd movie which would be the Third War.

[Guyviroth]

No its Blizzards fault. they can do awsome cinematics and THAT TEAM should have made a NONE REAL ACTOR warcraft movie.

Except that has no bearing on this current discussion at all, but feel free to make a separate topic discussing this premise.

[Ehrenpanzer]

The Average rating on Rotten Tomatoes for Warcraft was 4.2

Which as we all know is the one and only standard by which to judge a movie... certainly not the fact it was a licence to print money in Asia. You think they give the slightest crap how well it did in North America?

[Thelxi]

I thought the movie was terribly cast. Half of them looked like larpers. It was hard to look past and take seriously.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Which as we all know is the one and only standard by which to judge a movie... certainly not the fact it was a licence to print money in Asia. You think they give the slightest crap how well it did in North America?

It didn't exactly "print money" in Asia...the movie barely made it's budget back.

[Ehrenpanzer]

It didn't exactly "print money" in Asia...the movie barely made it's budget back.

You really need to get some facts. 160M estimated production budget, 433.7M (of which only 44M came from NA) in box office. (not counting dvd sales, merch etc..) Sure, thats small potatoes compared to say, Xmen or Avengers, but nothing to sneeze at either.