On the the story of WARCRAFT:
What I suggested was, look, what makes WARCRAFT on a game side work so well is that players choose to be on either side and they tell the story from their perspective, so you have to be able to empathize with both sides. And my pitch was, Look, let’s tell a war story where you show heroes on both sides and how they come into conflict because of a situation that they can’t find a way to avoid. So, it really is a war story. This could not be based on WARCRAFT. I think the fundamentals that make it work on a story level come out of something that’s not dependent on the game it just happens to fit beautifully with what the game is.
On making the film accessible to both gaming and non-gaming audiences:
The film is designed to be for an audience who may not have played the game or may know nothing about the game. It’s a film and it works in its own right...I think the absolute key ingredient right from the start was to work as closely with Blizzard as we could…making sure that we kept the DNA of what made the game work and stuck to the law as much as we could. Now, there are always gonna be moments where we’re gonna have to take license to make things work in a linear narrative for the duration of a film, but we have done our absolute best, and I think we’ve been very successful in keeping to the law of WARCRAFT and at the same time making it accessible for people who don’t know anything about WARCRAFT.
On whether or not he'd like to make more WARCRAFT films, including a possible trilogy:
I really hope that the audience is gonna be out there and is gonna come out and support this film. I would love to get to do another one. There’s 11 months between now and when this film comes out. I’m hoping to sneak in a little indie/sci-fi thing before this comes out...If we had the chance to do a trilogy and do three films, I think we know, in rough blocks, what this-what those three movies would be. It works as a standalone. It would absolutely lend itself to a continuing story for three films, because that’s how we kinda planned it out.
Speaking at the Legendary booth during San Diego Comic-Con this evening, director Duncan Jones revealed Warcraft is about 10 VFX shots from being complete, he’s confident it’s good, and would love to come back to direct a sequel. Maybe even two.
Jones also unveiled WETA-designed sculptures of several main characters in the Warcraft film, as well as the new Legendary VR experience Warcraft: The Skies of Azeroth, which is available now for Android and iOS.
But that’s not all. Since Warcraft is almost done, but won’t be released until June 2016, Jones said he hopes he can get away from the world of Warcraft for a few months to squeeze in his passion project, the sci-fi film Mute. It’s a Blade Runner-esque movie he’s been trying to get made for years. Once he’s finished that, the Warcraft movie will be out and he’ll turn his attention to a sequel. He and the Blizzard crew have reportedly talked about the stories for two more movies.
On how close the movie is to being done: That number is down to about eight or nine shots left . Our scoring is done, and we're doing some final mixing. We are doing tweaks to the color grade, but we pretty much have a complete film now.
On the importance of SDCC for movies: It is an exponentially growing event for genre films.
On what else will be revealed about the Warcraft movie at SDCC: There is an awful lot of stuff going on. I am very unsure how much I can talk about. They want to make the reveals as surprising as possible. We do have the panel with most of our main cast there, and we are going to be showing ... something that should be a great taster of what to expect from the film.
