Warcraft movie chronicling Rise of the Lich King in 2011?

By TomM_GScom, GameSpotPosted Oct 7, 2009 11:46 am PT

Source: The ever-popular Internet Movie Database.What we heard: Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft universe is nothing if not sprawling, thanks to some 15 years of storyline development across games and novels. The developer's expansive narrative tradition offers a plethora of options for the...

Source: The ever-popular Internet Movie Database.

What we heard: Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft universe is nothing if not sprawling, thanks to some 15 years of storyline development across games and novels. The developer's expansive narrative tradition offers a plethora of options for the upcoming movie set in the Warcraft universe. However, as of August's BlizzCon 2009, director Sam Raimi had not announced any details about what parts of Blizzard lore would be the foundation for his film's script.

Now, though, it appears as if details on the Legendary Pictures-backed production have slipped out, courtesy of popular online movie database IMDB. According to the silver-screen depository, the upcoming Warcraft film now bears the subtitle "The Rise of the Lich King," indicating it will draw from the same source material as 2008's best-selling World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.

The Lich King has proven to be fertile source material for Blizzard. Aside from the WOW expansion, the story of the Lich King was handled in Christie Golden's novel Arthas: Rise of the Lich King, which was named to the New York Times' Best-seller list within a week of going on sale earlier this year.

As its title implies, the novel tells an expanded version of the human storyline seen in Blizzard's 2002 real-time strategy game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and the Wrath of the Lich King WOW expansion. It sees the benevolent paladin prince Arthas Menethil corrupted by the runeblade Frostmourne and turned into an undead lord of unspeakable evil.

One other point of interest from the IMDB listing, Warcraft: The Rise of the Lich King now bears an expected release date of 2011. As part of BlizzCon 2007, Legendary CEO Thomas Tull said that the film would be live-action with a $100 million budget and would be out by 2009--a release date it obviously missed.

The official story: Blizzard Entertainment had not returned requests for comment as of press time.

Bogus or not bogus?: While often trusted by industry professionals, IMDB is far from a reliable source, given that information can easily be added to the database without a thorough vetting of the material. As such, bogus that anything is official, though the Lich King storyline does seem to be working out pretty well for Blizzard. The critically hailed expansion sold over 2.8 million copies worldwide in less than 24 hours when it launched last November. As of the end of August, it had sold nearly 2 million units in the US alone.

79 Comments

  • mrcookie44

    Posted Oct 15, 2009 7:28 am PT

    I also think that they should make it in CGI. Take a look at the cutscenes in Diablo 2. Even though they are nearly 10 years old, they still look awesome to this day !

  • odst_trooper117

    Posted Oct 14, 2009 5:48 pm PT

    2011.... hmmm, this will have a hard time going up agianst The Hobbit

  • Syphofighter

    Posted Oct 14, 2009 7:29 am PT

    Something told me it would be about Arthas, I just knew! Dont ask me how! But Arthas didnt really get involved with the horde, so it will be good to see how they are added to his life!

  • NickAnguiano

    Posted Oct 12, 2009 12:21 pm PT

    Not that I think Sam will do a bad job, I just think a WoW movie would probably be at it's best if it was all CGI like Final Fantasy: Advent Children kinda thing, and more importantly.. just done internally by Blizzard. If you don't follow me.. go back and watch some of the introduction videos the WoW games... names Lich King and Burning Crusade. Also some of the patch videos that introduce a new instance or w/e. Blizzard could do an amazing job making a movie completely on their own. Honestly, I dunno how seriously I could take real people running around dressed as elves with fake long ears and revealing armor, someone painted in green from head to toe with tusks glued to their face (a troll), or wise cracking midgets that will just be called a gnome etc. I mean.. didn't they already make a porn movie for that called "whorecraft" or something? lol. Meh... I like WoW and love Blizzard but I will probably remain skeptical until I learn more.

  • Cabal23

    Posted Oct 9, 2009 6:42 am PT

    Maybe one of the Wayan brothers can ruin it.

  • cyborg100000

    Posted Oct 8, 2009 2:00 pm PT

    "Almost all movie adaptations of video games are untrue to the games they are based on and bad. I expect this to be the same."

    They've got Chris Metzen on the script so it should stay true to the story.

  • not_wanted

    Posted Oct 8, 2009 1:33 pm PT

    2011? So it's going against The Hobbit. This should be interesting.
    They better not screw this one too.

  • djshiivva

    Posted Oct 8, 2009 11:38 am PT

    hell yeah! lich king ftw!

  • skyjack

    Posted Oct 8, 2009 10:49 am PT

    Am i misreading this? Im seeing "rise of the lich king" not wrath. why is everybody acting like its about the expansion? Wouldnt it make more sense to see the original (non arthas) storyline?

  • Shardz7

    Posted Oct 8, 2009 10:28 am PT

    At least they got lucky and got Sam Raimi to direct the project. Poor Max Payne fans got the shaft with a director that never even bothered to go near the game, let alone try to understand what the character of the series was even about.

  • Oni

    Posted Oct 8, 2009 10:28 am PT

    Arthus, a kind and powerful man becomes corrupted by a "dark force" and destroys everything he once fought to protect. I always wondered what Starwars would have been like set in the "Willow/LoTR" Universe. Guess, I'll have to wonder no more. :p

  • borne_god

    Posted Oct 8, 2009 9:41 am PT

    They better not screw this up! All graphics and no motion in the story would be bad!!! Come on Sam Raimi, u can do it!

  • Tatemio

    Posted Oct 8, 2009 8:11 am PT

    Haha yeah thrall better be f*cking awesome

  • Jakirus

    Posted Oct 8, 2009 7:31 am PT

    The Rise of the lich king is the obvious choice, both cinematically and from a marketing point of view. WOTLK was the most hyped up and publicised expansion of all, Cataclysm isn't even getting the publicity WOTLK did. Plus Frozen Throne has pretty much become the set standard of Warcraft 3. So even those who haven't followed the stories of previous games, but at least know OF wow, would be more enticed to see Arthas' story than others (one quite reminiscent of Darth Vader). And it's one I would like to see personally. I just hope that this will not be another disappointment which has now become common of the "game-movie" genre. Saying that, its also an easy sell, a great deal of subscribers are going to see this, and wow has a lot of subscribers. I think I can speak on behalf of all Warcraft fans when i say "Sam...don't screw this up, you have some incredible reference material here, make good use of it"

  • Nina_Pro

    Posted Oct 8, 2009 7:15 am PT

    they should have started with the first war and the burning crusade story line before just jumping to the lich king like that. You know they're gonna make prequels if the wotlk movie does good. and i dont see why it wouldnt. this movie should also have an r rating. wow might have cartoon graphics and cartoon violence, but its a rather violent world right? lets see that get put in the movie

  • Beawolf

    Posted Oct 8, 2009 4:35 am PT

    Thrall better be awesome!

  • blackfray

    Posted Oct 8, 2009 4:20 am PT

    Arthas is my favorite character in Warcraft universe and i think it can be a great start for warcraft movie, besides Blizzard knows what he is doing.I really believe this movie is gonna break the curse of failure in movies based on games.

  • spector000

    Posted Oct 7, 2009 11:24 pm PT

    Hussar83 They should make it animated Beawulf style. It takes less time to make and its as good as anything.
    I agree totally whit that a live movie cant give you all the possibilities a CGI movie can. And lets face it you cant have a Warcraft movie whiteout some truly epic battles and spells and more which cant be done whit stuntmen and real actors. Lets face it its a Might and Magic universe where Warcraft lives.
    LOTR just wasn't convincing for me. But then again it has been many years since LOTR maybe Hollywood could make it work better than it did whit LOTR.

  • kenerhai

    Posted Oct 7, 2009 11:03 pm PT

    Arthas: Rise of the Lich Kings was a great book and I look forward to a WoW movie, but I can't say I'm thrilled to know Sam Raimi is attached. He slaughtered the Spider Man movies, and I'd much rather see him return to Evil Dead or Army of Darkness.

  • LordRaymond

    Posted Oct 7, 2009 10:14 pm PT

    This movie might break the chain of bad adaptations and besides when has Blizzard ever made a bad game.

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