Do you think 'Warcraft' will flop at the box office?

[Deleted]

Is anybody else a little cynical about the Movie?
I hope it's going to be awesome, I really do. But have we ever had a truly great movie based around what is essentially a video game franchise?
I know the lore goes a hell of a lot deeper than the games themselves, with the novels and so on. But is that really going to be enough to separate it from the absolute horrors that were the Super Mario Bros. movie, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Hitman?
Even the slightly more successful adaptations like Resident Evil and Silent Hill weren't particularly stellar. Good for a video game movie, sure. But as a movie in their own rights, they were still pretty sub-par.

What worries me is that Warcraft is going to come of as super cheesy.
I think the existing Warcraft universe fans are going to find it cringe-inducing, as the characters will not meet the personal expectations of the character they've developed in their imagination. The story is also going to be too truncated in order for it to fit into 100-180 minutes of screen time. There will be plot holes everywhere.
But the biggest problem I can see is that the Blizzard fanbase aren't going to be enough to keep this movie above water for long
Sure, the Blizzard fanbase is pretty enormous, and Blizzard have an enormous opportunity in which to advertise their game to existing Blizzard customers. But in cinema terms, it's still a complete drop in the ocean. The producers are going to have to make the movie appeal to the general public, who will have no doubt heard of World of Warcraft and so on in the media or whatnot, but have absolutely zero interest in the franchise whatsoever.
These people will probably take one look at the Warcraft movie and see it as a cheap LotR ripoff and lose all interest. It'll become wait for those "I'll just wait for Netflix" movies. About the only way to get the genera public into cinema seats is if Warcraft manages to buck the trend and become a genuinely awesome movie in it's own right, without ever having to fall back on it's roots. And that would be a first for a video game movie.

What I imagine will happen is this: Movie finishes production and goes into limited release. Ticket sales are good for the first week, but begin to fall off drastically. Within a month the movie is on pay-per-view and not long after is streaming on Netflix, Now TV, etc.
Movie critics give Warcraft a pretty stale rating, around 55-60% on Rottentomatoes, and within a couple of years it's completely forgotten about.

However, this is still going to be a win-win for Blizzard. Even if the movie fails horribly, it's going to massively increase their brand recognition. This movie, awful or not will give them a hell of a lot of exposure for WoW and that in turn will help to give their other games some much needed exposure too.
But I expect that Blizzard have already taken this into consideration. Even if it flops, it's going to be one hell of a commercial.

[Verdugo]

what worries me is that Warcraft is going to come of as super cheesy.

Oh really? We are talking about franchise that managed to get to the biggest level of cheese I have ever seen.

[BenBos]

After viewing the Warcraft movie panel no one is going to doubt its success really.

BlizzCon exploded after the final For the Horde And For the Alliance emotions.

Grtz to the actor that plays Ogrim: Metzen was outMetzed by a factor of 10.

Pfew. What a panel.

OP clearly did not see Duncan Jones and Co talking about the movie. Whatever he may state.

The complete BlizzCon went silent when they talked about the humanoid emotions of the Orcs play.

For the first time this will not be a movie about humans fighting monsters, DJ made it very clear this was going to be a war movie about humanoids fighting other humanoids whatever their race, color, gender or looks or even species.

That alone will set the movie going for critics. It is like planet of the Apes but even more dramatic as you will have equal sympathy for humans as for Orcs and their families.

This puts the movie out of the usual Fantasy genre already.

The message was nothing less than epic. Dunjan Jones IS the son of David Bowie, he showed it clearly on stage: a genius to catch "it".

[MoanaLisa]

I hope it's going to be awesome, I really do.

I read your whole post and apart from what I quoted I didn't get that.

It's still over a year away so there's no way to know. The budget is big enough; it has a reasonably good cast and a director that understands the subject material and is enthusiastic about doing it. Great movies sometimes fail; bad movies sometimes win. We'll see.

[Deleted]

If I had to make a guess with no real basis, I would say that the movie is likely to be pretty good. Duncan Jones has always used good material in his previous films and told them with great flair.

The problem is public prejudice against Warcraft. It is synonymous with dysfunctional, anti-social people in the eyes of the general public. We'll see what happens, but this thread is going to be all opinion anyway as we do not know anything really.

[Grevie]

No one will know, but remember movie critics are not the game critics, or maybe they can put some green in the field and get good reviews though.

[Ratyrel]

Movie panel imo was amazing. You could feel the passion and the involvement both from the VFX guy and the actor, as well as the director. Whether it will become an epic milestone, who knows. But it definitely seems to be in a new league of "videogame movies" at the very least.

About your concerns: these kinds of epic fantasy movies with an actual big budget aren't so very common and attract a lot of people since LotR imo - at the same time Warcraft is different enough in its own right. The only problem is really if it's actually going to be competing with batman vs superman, because that would be bad.

[Fablewynd]

My only concern is Duncan said Ben Schnetzer won't be using a British accent.

[bobo333]

should do alright at the box office. if everyone subbed to the game now went and paid £10 a head that's still £75 mil. will it be remembered long term? probably not, the consumer keeps on consuming. will the mainstream, non wow playing cinema goers see it? that depends on marketing i guess, but with the popularity of things like game of thrones, normally geek fodder, i think there might be some hope for some nice numbers.

edit. no sleep, no spelly righty

[Kaleredar]

Is anybody else a little cynical about the Movie?
I hope it's going to be awesome, I really do. But have we ever had a truly great movie based around what is essentially a video game franchise?
I know the lore goes a hell of a lot deeper than the games themselves, with the novels and so on. But is that really going to be enough to separate it from the absolute horrors that were the Super Mario Bros. movie, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Hitman?

Mortal combat, street fighter, and Mario didn't have stories. Like, at all. They really had nothing to base the films on. Also consider the directors... I'm not going to cross-check all the movies right now, but were any of them spearheaded by someone with great movies under their belt like Duncan Jones?

What worries me is that Warcraft is going to come of as super cheesy.
I think the existing Warcraft universe fans are going to find it cringe-inducing, as the characters will not meet the personal expectations of the character they've developed in their imagination. The story is also going to be too truncated in order for it to fit into 100-180 minutes of screen time. There will be plot holes everywhere.
But the biggest problem I can see is that the Blizzard fanbase aren't going to be enough to keep this movie above water for long
Sure, the Blizzard fanbase is pretty enormous, and Blizzard have an enormous opportunity in which to advertise their game to existing Blizzard customers. But in cinema terms, it's still a complete drop in the ocean. The producers are going to have to make the movie appeal to the general public, who will have no doubt heard of World of Warcraft and so on in the media or whatnot, but have absolutely zero interest in the franchise whatsoever.
These people will probably take one look at the Warcraft movie and see it as a cheap LotR ripoff and lose all interest. It'll become wait for those "I'll just wait for Netflix" movies. About the only way to get the genera public into cinema seats is if Warcraft manages to buck the trend and become a genuinely awesome movie in it's own right, without ever having to fall back on it's roots. And that would be a first for a video game movie.

What I imagine will happen is this: Movie finishes production and goes into limited release. Ticket sales are good for the first week, but begin to fall off drastically. Within a month the movie is on pay-per-view and not long after is streaming on Netflix, Now TV, etc.
Movie critics give Warcraft a pretty stale rating, around 55-60% on Rottentomatoes, and within a couple of years it's completely forgotten about.

However, this is still going to be a win-win for Blizzard. Even if the movie fails horribly, it's going to massively increase their brand recognition. This movie, awful or not will give them a hell of a lot of exposure for WoW and that in turn will help to give their other games some much needed exposure too.
But I expect that Blizzard have already taken this into consideration. Even if it flops, it's going to be one hell of a commercial.

They sound like they're taking the movie making seriously. But I do understand your concerns, especially with it being too dense. Warcraft's story has been revised and rewritten several times throughout the course of the RTSs and WoW, and I honestly don't know how easily or coherently that will boil down. Especially, as you said, for people not familiar with the franchise... These aren't just LotR orcs... these are "orcs from outer space" to boot.

I think Warcraft 1 was the best place for them to start, however. But they still have to go over so much... The Burning Legion, the formation of the Horde, Sargeras and Medivh, and all of that stuff.

But at least they seem to be giving a really cracking go at it. It doesn't come off as half-assed in the least so far.

[Kathranis]

Flop? No. Not going to happen.

How it'll be received by critics is up in the air. Duncan Jones is an excellent director, and the FX are going to be state of the art. The only real question is if the script and actors can deliver.

However, at the end of the day, it's still going to be a huge, splashy FX spectacle war movie.

It would be really, really hard for it to not at least do as well as Clash of the Titans at the box office, especially given the built in fanbase it already has. Most Warcraft fans will be seeing it, probably multiple times.

If there's one thing I'm confident in saying, it's that it's going to be a financial success.

[Deleted]

but with the popularity of things like game of thrones, normally geek fodder, i think their might be some hope for some nice numbers.

I think this is what's going to be Warcraft's biggest hurdle though. It's unavoidable that people will compare the movie to other material in the same genre, Game of Thrones, LotR, etc. I just can't see it standing up to the same critical acclaim. I really do hope I'm wrong though. Either way I'll be 100% buying tickets when it gets released.

[foxHeart]

I suspect it will be bad, but it could be watchable. I'm pretty curious how orcs will be portrayed, though, since this is when they were basically mindless, bloodthirsty assholes. I expect them to be once again painted in a misunderstood, tragic light. Good or bad, I have no interest in watching it in a theater. Might torrent or watch a stream, but not really interested in anything else.

[Nachturnal]

I sort of thought it was going to be cheesy, video game movies have a pretty bad reputation in Hollywood. However, the use of motion capture has given me some hope. I'm imagining some Lord of the Rings-esque movie so there's that.

[Deleted]

If you think in terms of LOTR or the TV show Game of Thrones yes it will be a super flop at the box office!
On the other hand I'm sure it will be a hit with Warcraft fans

[BenBos]

I suspect it will be bad, but it could be watchable. I'm pretty curious how orcs will be portrayed, though, since this is when they were basically mindless, bloodthirsty assholes. I expect them to be once again painted in a misunderstood, tragic light. Good or bad, I have no interest in watching it in a theater. Might torrent or watch a stream, but not really interested in anything else.

Another one who missed out on the panel stream.

Your arguments were all adressed already. You could hear a pin fall sometimes when DJ spoke about how he viewed the Orcs.

In no way will this movie be just another fantasy story of humans fighting beasts.

[dacoolist]

I think it's going to be an A title. It won't be as solid like a marvel film (A++ quality IMHO), but it will be one of the best video game movies of all time.

[sykoex]

I think the orcs versus humans thing will go over well, similar to how Avatar's humans versus na'vi story really resonated with people. I for one am curious about how brutal the war will be and if any of the orcs and humans can get along with each other.

[bobo333]

and nobody has mentioned the nagging brat factor. 6 year old kids with no preconceptions seeing something that looks like it could be in the same vein as that hobbit thing they have on dvd, hassling dad, then kid tells friends etc etc. this could blow up to be huge

[Kiffy85]

Its got a lot going for it I've only seen Source Code one of Duncan Jones films which I really liked. Also because its showing orcs as more then just monster it makes it different from LOTR etc. The only problems I can see with it is if "non Geeks" go and see it. Marvel has done it with their films and a lot of people go and see the LOTR's films so you never know. The over problem is that it comes out 2 weeks shy of Batman V Superman ofc that film could be good or terrible but some people may wait if they are tight on money that month to see BVS.