World of Warcraft movie loses director

The World of Warcraft movie has suffered a setback. CraveOnline caught up with Spider-Man director Sam Raimi at Comic-Con last week, where the filmmaker confirmed that he was no longer attached to the forthcoming film based on Blizzard's massively multiplayer online role-playing game due to his work on Oz: The Great and Powerful.

"Actually, they don't have me directing World of Warcraft anymore, because when I took the Oz job they had to move on to another director," Raimi said. "They had to start making it."

No mention was made concerning a replacement for Raimi as the World of Warcraft film director. As of press time, Blizzard has not responded to GameSpot's request for comment.

The World of Warcraft movie was announced in 2006. At the time, Blizzard stated that its intent was to make "one of the best films in the world." In 2009, Raimi officially came aboard to direct, and later that year, Saving Private Ryan scribe Robert Rodat was announced as the film's writer. In 2010, Raimi offered more details on the film, saying he had a 40-page document that "needs a lot of work."

"We're finding the characters and through the characters we're finding the story…we're trying to create realistic characters that can live in the world of Warcraft, as though you were in the game itself," he said at the time.

Raimi's Oz: The Great and Powerful hits theaters in 2013 starring Mila Kunis (Black Swan, Family Guy), James Franco (Spider-Man, 127 Hours), and Michelle Williams (Dawson's Creek, Shutter Island). It is a prequel to L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and tells how the great wizard arrived in Oz and became its ruler.

World of Warcraft remains the most popular MMORPG on the market. It has 10.2 million paying subscribers, and a new expansion--Mists of Pandaria--is in development.