There could be a Warcraft TV series one day

In the dedicated movie panel at Blizzcon, SVP of Creative Development at Blizzard Entertainment Chris Metzen confessed that he’d like to do a Warcraft TV series at some point. When they started considering the possibility of a Warcraft movie, this kind of fantasy stories was primarily told in movies like The Lord of the Rings, but now the success of Games of Thrones illustrates a new path.

Of course, most of the panel was focused on the Warcraft movie which is now in pre-production. Director Duncan Jones was on stage and he claimed to have played all Warcraft games, jumping into World of Warcraft after originally starting a clan in Richard Garriott’s Ultima Online. The original script was apparently too heavy on the Alliance faction, so the first thing proposed by Jones was actually to create a more balanced plot that included the Horde as well.

As for the locations, most of the movie will take place in the Eastern Kingdoms continent and the storyline will involve the Orcs versus Humans conflict, which is ultimately what the original Warcraft was all about. The main characters will be Durotan for the Orcs and Lothar for the Humans. Finally, the style has been likened to Gladiator, which means that they’re going for a gritty war movie, even though they’re shooting for a PG13 rating - but as they pointed out during the panel, the ratings are shifting, if one considers that the Batman trilogy by Christopher Nolan was rated as much.

Jones admitted that The Lord of the Rings inspired him to commit to Warcraft, and he hopes to match or even beat them; it’s a lofty goal for sure, and the latest trailer for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug testifies to that. The Warcraft movie is scheduled for release some time in 2015, and a preview trailer could be shown at next year’s Blizzcon.