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Star Wars effects studio working on Warcraft film, an Orcs vs. Humans origin story

Blizzard confirms Oscar-winning Star Wars studio Industrial Light & Magic working on upcoming film based on fantasy series; Durotan and Lothar will be featured.

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Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), the prolific Academy Award winning visual effects studio behind franchises like Star Wars and Indiana Jones, is working on the upcoming Warcraft film, Blizzard Entertainment confirmed today at BlizzCon during a special panel for the movie.

More specifically, ILM is creating the Orcs for the Warcraft film, which will be performed by real actors. Colin Farrell has reportedly been offered the lead role for the movie, though casting was not discussed today during the panel.

The Warcraft movie will feature a combination of live-action and CGI. Visual effects supervisor for the film, Bill Westenhofer, described the Orcs as "gritty and real," going on to say the movie will come across as "Avatar meets Game of Thrones."

Westenhofer has won Oscars for Life of Pi and The Golden Compass. He is also a veteran and devoted World of Warcraft player, having started playing the game in its original beta in 2004. He currently has a level-90 character.

Two major characters for the Warcraft film--an Orcs. vs. Humans origin story--were also confirmed during the panel: Durotan and Lothar, who will go head-to-head. Both characters want to do the right thing for their people, director Duncan Jones said, though no further details were provided.

The Warcraft movie will be released on December 18, 2015. Jones said today he hopes the film will be released in 2D and 3D, and that the film will probably be rated PG-13. Blizzard COO Paul Sams recently explained in detail why the movie will not fall on its face like other films based on games that have come before it.

"We're really excited about, we believe in the team, and we think that come 2015, we're going to have something special," Sams told GameSpot last night.

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Crush_Project

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why is it every time you refresh and look back at the page your comments are already gone, this site is either faulty or they have the most aggressive censorship on the internet....

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DeViLzzzWIN

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DeViLzzzWIN

I clicked on a link to go to Knack and this is what I was sent to ...

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bigmikeOK

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bigmikeOK

Have they found a producer and director for this movie? I want to know what about who controls the quality of the movie not the quality of the graphics.

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bernardoneves

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bernardoneves

<< LINK REMOVED >> Duncan Jones they guy who directed Moon and Source Code. The studio will be Legendary Pictures (Pacific Rim, The Dark Knight, 300, Man of Steel, etc)

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Grenadeh

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And it will suck.

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Imperiusmax

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Imperiusmax

Well at least the graphics will be good. Now on to the rest of the movie!

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DigiTMPS3

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DigiTMPS3

Just make sure you ask some cinema patrons if you could join their guild before the movie starts.

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ndmq

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ndmq

PG 13??? That means no limb hacking, decapitation, blood spurting, real war mongering sweetness????? This movie is doomed to failed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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justinka777

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justinka777

<< LINK REMOVED >> PG 13 has all that, heck most evening television has all that.

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A-Typing-Llama

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A-Typing-Llama

<< LINK REMOVED >> I don't think THAT content will be a deciding factor in this films success. The game managed fine without it.

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so_hai

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so_hai

13 of the 21 news stories currently here on Gamespot are concerned with Blizzard.

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DarkJedi8_basic

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DarkJedi8_basic

<< LINK REMOVED >> A little thing called 'Blizzcon' happened over the weekend, so...

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so_hai

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so_hai

<< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >> If Blizzcon is so significant, it should be given its own section on the site like every other convention that's covered.

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telaros

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telaros

Well DUH. Every movie based on a video game or comic book character is ALWAYS about a bloody origin story. We knew it was going to be about Orcs and Humans for years now =/

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mr_nee

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mr_nee

<< LINK REMOVED >> that's not origin. -_-

Origin would be titans imprisoning the old gods, turning chaoss into order, building planets including Azeroth and then leaving forever. Leaving dragons to guard Azeroth and Sargeras to guard the old gods.

One of dragons bangs the moon (moon and dragon both females!) and thus Cenarius - half elf half stag is born.

Old gods driving Sargeras insane and making him beleive that the order created by Titans is stupid and chaoss is the right way. So Sargeras hires demons, to attack Azeroth aka War ot the ancients, he corrupts few Highborn elves (which later turn into satyres, also there are stupid elven queen and her friends who are about to drown, but old gods save them by turning into Nagas).

While everyone is busy fighting the war of ancients, the old gods drive the back dragon insane and he adopts a stage name "Deathwing".

By accident one of orcs travels to past and helps to fight the war of ancients. Old gods see an orc for the first time and decide they have to check them out later. Eventually they drive the whole orc race insane. THIS is why Orcs attacked in the first place! That story you call "origin" happened only about 10000 years later.

Every single bad thing that happens in Azeroth happens because someone turns insane - Scarlet Crusade, Orcs, Deathwing, Arthas,... the list could go on. So yeah, origin is about imprisoning and war of ancients -- that story is very war intense and has more magick to it, but it could never be a movie, because there's only one human in it

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Grenadeh

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<< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >> That actually wouldn't be origin, at all, because that wasn't part of the story until World of Warcraft. Warcraft came out over a decade before that, friend.

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mr_nee

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mr_nee

<< LINK REMOVED >> yeah... uhm... friend, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about do you?

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telaros

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telaros

<< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >> I was going by the "Hollywood" definition of how they treat video game and comic franchises. They rarely, if ever, go into any real depth into any lore that wasn't covered in one long winded exposition before all the fighting scenes take place. I'm not expecting a "Lord of the Rings" length feature with this movie.

If you make your expectations high you might just be disappointed considering how trivialized they made the war of the ancients into a 5 man and were going to make Queen Azshara into a bloody 5 man dungeon. That could of been the greatest raid ever.

I'll keep my expectations at a minimum till it comes out. Hype only leads to disappointments, I'll just keep being hopeful that they don't f it up.

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Deingerous

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Well, i dunno how the film will turn out but ILM are masters at what they do, so it will at least look good. That said i don't see how warcraft will make a good film.

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DeViLzzzWIN

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DeViLzzzWIN

Ok I am worried about this movie more and more now. I would have preferred an all cg movie that looked like the in game stuff but no we got to make a big production out of this and ruin it.

Anyone here see the last Indiana Jones movie ? Once they got to the cg it looked fake as hell and it was an absolutely horrible movie.

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bernardoneves

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bernardoneves

<< LINK REMOVED >> Why the f*ck are you comparing it to that trash of a movie?! Didn't you see LotR? Gollum was CGI..Avatar is a good one has well, with that capturing of face expression. If the movie would be all in CGI couldn't never be at the same level of epicness as LotR or Gladiator!

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Scarshi

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The light effects are nice but I like it when they add the magic to movies. Its so pretty ...

ILM = Computers, technicians and Mickey Mouse in a sorcerer's hat.

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DrKill09

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DrKill09

Soo... the effects are going to look fake as hell?

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ziproy

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<< LINK REMOVED >> There's no one better at special effects than Industrial Light and Magic....

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Crush_Project

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<< LINK REMOVED >> wow...lol

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Zeeksie

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Zeeksie

<< LINK REMOVED >> ILM are good at creating costumes, puppets, prosthetics and so on, but they really suck at CGI. Here's hoping someone more qualified will be handling that.

And you're giving ILM too much credit, they have a legacy, yes, but are they the best at what they do? No.

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Grenadeh

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<< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >> Yes, actually.

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fulga_metallist

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fulga_metallist

FINALLY

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vault-boy

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vault-boy

Well this is at least some great news. I.L.M. is pretty much the gold standard in special effects, both practical and CG. The film might not end up being good but at least we know it will LOOK good!

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Gegglington

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Gegglington

well i hope its good ILM top kiddies n all but you cant polish a turd

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monkeypukefight

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monkeypukefight

<< LINK REMOVED >> well.... it turns out you can... they did it on mythbusters. lol!

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Gegglington

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Gegglington

<< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >> haha oh yeah forgot bout that episode touche

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feleas

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feleas

<< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >> yeah, you're gonna have to dig deep to say an analogy that'll not be proven by mythbusters heh

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Sl4cka

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Sl4cka

I don't like the look of that PG-13...

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ziproy

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<< LINK REMOVED >> Where is there M-worthy content in Warcraft (besides the dialogue of the gamers)...

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feleas

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feleas

@Sl4cka the game itself is rated PG13. Alien Quadrilogy is rated PG13 now from its original R rating. I don't think we should be worried

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vadagar1

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no pandas... and no comic crap.... this seems promising

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feared4power

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<< LINK REMOVED >> u need a brewmaster so hopefully there's at least one panda.

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feleas

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@feared4power @vadagar1 This is warcraft 1 based. that one brewmaster is still on the giant turtle as a young panda about to leave the island haha

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Hjindee

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i saw the Warcraft Movie panel via the virtuel ticket. And guys. I assure you, the warcraft movie is in very good hands, in the hands of fans of the games and the lore.

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feleas

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<< LINK REMOVED >> thank you for saying what we at blizzcon experienced haha

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Vojtass

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@ Eddie Makuch

Everybody knows Industrial Light & Magic! You don't have to write "Star Wars effect studio" in a title.

Is that clear? Dismissed!

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Rufusamatrix

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<< LINK REMOVED >> No, he had to, because I didn't know.

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Vojtass

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<< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >> Poor baby.

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Seymour47

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As others have said, ILM is one of the (if not the) top effects studios in the world. This is not big news. The only news about this is the fact that it's related to the glacially slow moving Warcraft movie.

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slickr

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slickr

First of all ILM has worked on many movies, not just Star Wars.

Second this is not an MMO movie, this is based on the warcraft the RTS series. From what we know the movie is most likely going to be based between the time period of warcraft 2 and warcraft 3. So the MMO has absolutely nothing to do with the movie, first there were 3 Warcraft RTS games and few expansions and then came the MMO.


What terrible reporting, you don't even try these days.

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GH05T-666

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GH05T-666

I hope this turns out good. At least the visual effects will be.

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