Blizzard man talks WOW movie

Blizzard bigwig Paul Sams has declared that the World of Warcraft movie is coming along nicely, thank you - and that unlike most big screen game adaptations, it won't be completely rubbish.

As announced last week, Blizzard is working on the project with Legendary Productions, the company responsible for Batman Begins and Superman Returns.

In an interview with Gamespot, Sams said: "We and Legendary want to make a great film, an event picture, big-budget picture, that is a great standalone, fantasy-based movie that is good for you regardless of whether you're familiar with the Warcraft universe.

"We're not trying to take what we've done and... try to make a literal translation to the big screen. What we want to do is to make a great movie that happens to be set in a videogame universe. That's a differentiator, and a key differentiator."

It helps that the Warcraft series has been around for more than a decade now, according to Sams: "There's a huge tapestry from which to work - a lot of the other videogame movies we've seen prior to this have not had the benefit of as much lore and mythology, and this huge visual tapestry from which to work from. I think we're bringing more to the table that movie makers will be able to draw from."

He reckons the finished movie will end up "somewhere between Braveheart and Lord of the Rings"... So does that mean they'll be approaching Peter Jackson to direct?

"That's an obvious. Yeah, he would kick ass at this. But, you know, whether we can get him or whether he'd be interested... Who knows?"

They're still "fleshing out" the story, but once that's done Blizzard will have final approval on who actually writes the script. "We'll have a lot of input and say as to what the screenplay ultimately ends up looking like. And we feel really good about that... We're there as a creative backstop to make sure, from a continuity perspective for all the Warcraft people, that we do right by the franchise," Sams explained.

As for when the movie will arrive in cinemas - well, not for ages and ages, by the sound of things. Sams said they still have to finish and refine the treatment, hire the screenwriter, make sure everything is totally accurate with regard to WOW lore, and find a director before they start actually pointing cameras at people wearing giant rubber ears.

"Legendary and Blizzard have the same answer on when they're going to get it done," said Sams, "And that's when it's right."