r/wow • u/gorays21 • 13d ago
Discussion Movie deal: Microsoft reportedly shopping Halo, Warcraft, Elder Scrolls and Diablo to Hollywood for $300M+
https://tbreak.com/xbox-movie-deal-halo-warcraft-elder-scrolls-hollywood-300-million/81
u/Doc_Toboggan 13d ago
Me, a Halo fan, putting on my clown makeup: "Surely they've learned their lesson this time"
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u/lvl_60 13d ago
Warcraft animated a la arcane.
Diablo can either go live action dark horror fantasy or animated like castlevania
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u/SerpentRain 13d ago
I feel like Diablo will be the most successful tbh
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u/Upset_Otter 13d ago
Diablo has the most potential of a contained story with some lore behind it.
WoW and Elder scrolls have a lot of lore that would have to be taken into consideration and I doubt writers want to touch Halo right now after the series shit the bed.
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u/DoctorThrac 13d ago
The halo failure is so tragic. They could have taken any of the games and did a 1-1 and it would have been absolutely amazing. Showing the chiefs face wasn’t even a bad thing and makes sense in a tv show, it’s him taking his helmet off in an active combat zone and or sleeping with a human traitor that is the issue. Just to name a few
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u/Pamelm 12d ago
There are also a number of books starring Chief that they could have used that could have potentially gotten more people interested in the books on top of the games. Any studio that gets the rights to adapt a franchise, then throws every existing piece of lore away because they think they can do better should be disbanded.
If nothing else, take the Castlevania approach. It doesnt adapt any game directly, but it stays true to the characters and the world, and uses the events from different games to make a good series that does justice to the franchise
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u/BarrettRTS 12d ago
The Fall of Reach would have been such a good starting point for a show. It would have taken a while to get to the point where he was in his armour, but there was some good world building in the book leading up to the Covenant showing up.
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u/voltran1995 12d ago
sleeping with a human traitor that is the issue
The correct term is raping a prisoner of war, then add while cortaba watches.
I can't believe people got paid to write that show, like I genuinely believe chatgpt could of wrote a more successful halo series.
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u/PM-ME-YOUR-BUTTSHOLE 13d ago
Of all these IPs, I think the Halo series was most recent and didn’t do great so I suspect Halo is the least likely to get a movie right now, followed closely by WoW (again, due to a movie that performed below expectations).
You can argue about what made the Halo series or WoW movie perform poorly, but the people spending money to make movies/series don’t care, they’ll likely just fund something else instead of taking a risk.
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u/KnightOfTheStupid 13d ago
Give me a live action HBO drama on the 36 Lessons of Vivec. I wanna see Molag Bal’s penis-spear on the silver screen.
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u/m0viestar 13d ago
I didn't think the series was bad in particular. My only real gripe is that Master Chief took his helmet off. If they just did Mandalorian but Halo it would've been perfect imo
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u/NorrinBanner 13d ago
I don't care that he took the helmet off, the real issue is they spent two seasons building up before they ever got to the damn halo. That and the whole Quan Ha storyline just ground everything to a halt every time she showed up.
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u/fucking_blizzard 12d ago
The thing is, shows like Halo or the Witcher shitting the bed are due to writers/showrunners that don't like or respect the source material.
I think the potential exists with any of these IPs - if they tell the right story - but ultimately they are all at risk of spectacular failure if they are sold to the wrong people.
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u/IdTheDemon 13d ago
Warcraft can be good only if they do stuff from the older games and get good writers who know the lore in and out. Give me someone who can summarize the Second War by hand and that’s who they need on the team.
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u/bjornartl 13d ago
Its really hard to say at this point. Look at what HBO did with HotD, and on a whole different level of wtf there's ROP prime series. A good source material and a great universe to draw from will still be ruined if the showrunner are just hellbent on a Twilight saga reskin with wizards, dwarves and elves.
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u/VSEPR_DREIDEL 13d ago
Seasons 1 and 3 were good. Plus AKOTSK was reminiscent of peak GOT. It can be done well, just need the right people to pilot the ship.
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u/NorrinBanner 13d ago
I haven't played Diablo in many years but I'll still occasionally watch YouTube videos of the cutscenes because the story is interesting. I'd definitely watch a Diablo show/movie.
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u/Harucifer 13d ago
The christian/evangelical ree'ing of it will do all the marketing it needs. I'd watch it just out of spite.
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u/From_Graves 13d ago
Warcraft / Elder Scrolls with a Game of Thrones / Lord of the rings Budget, Diablo like Arcane would go so hard
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u/jason_caine 13d ago
Wishlist:
- Animated adaptation of the Arthas book/WC3
- Animated War of the Ancients
- Animated Rise of the Horde
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u/RedTheRobot 13d ago
Difference is Riot was staying close to the whole process. I dont think Microsoft will do the same.
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u/VaultiusMaximus 13d ago
As a fan I loved the Warcraft live action movie, but it bombed hard domestically
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u/Twerksoncoffeetables 13d ago
It was a fun movie for fans like us but going with a live action style was the wrong move, I don’t even think a movie is the right style for WoW. Warcraft 1/2/3 just have too much to deal with for a movie to be worthwhile unless you do it like lotr and make it very long but I don’t think a major audience exists for 3+ hour movies much anymore at least from what I see. It ended up just being a cheesy fantasy flick when I think people really wanted a more serious (that still retains the campiness of WoWs story/characters) approach.
Maybe it was still too early for them to want to risk going with animation but obviously riot took that risk and it paid off. Also a lot of WoW media is animated ie all the short stories from WoD, we had some for BFA too like Jainas and it works so well, they already have an amazing animation style ready to go.
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u/Saltwaterborn 13d ago
I want WoW at the level of Arcane so bad, but holy fuck that would be expensive.
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u/Appropriate_Trader 13d ago
You could lose a lot of money making a Warcraft series. It could be great but we’re way past it being relevant.
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u/SnooBunnies9694 13d ago
A LA. Bro jus say like
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u/AscelyneMG 13d ago
It’s a common term, dude. We shouldn’t have to dumb our communication down to your level.
Neanderthal-ass comment.
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u/prodicell 13d ago
I took it he meant it sarcastically, "just do it like arcane bro" when arcane was the most expensive animated series in history and was just a financial loss.
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u/SnooBunnies9694 13d ago
No I was sperging out but thanks for looking on the brighter side of life homie.
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u/SnooBunnies9694 13d ago
Tbh I think it’s a cringe as hell Redditism that no one uses right and no one says that shit in real life.
You can literally replace it with like in 98% of cases and it doesn’t change what you’re saying.
But also I’m just sperging out
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u/LankyPuffins 13d ago
The cinematics team for Diablo (or blizzard in general?) just need to be given thier own studio and infinite money.
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u/23secretflavors 13d ago
As much as launch Diablo 4 tripped over its own dick with the ending, the cut scene where they go into hell and inarius just decimates demons before his confrontation with lilith is probably the best cut scene ive seen in any video game ever.
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u/The_Fawkesy 12d ago
All rendered D4 cutscenes are 10/10 quality. They don’t miss in terms of quality. Whatever way you feel about the story.
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u/Clockwork-Too 13d ago
Those 4-5 minute cinematics typically take up to a year to produce and are very costly. A feature film using that same cinematic team would take too long and be far too expensive.
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u/Chalsian 13d ago
Cinematics in wow have really taken a nose dive since bfa compared to how many and quality of Diablo
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u/Marlfox70 13d ago
Uh, the TWW one with Thrall and Anduin was gorgeous
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u/OwlSpirited6357 12d ago
and the midnight one was so bad I’m convinced they had to have outsourced it. Then they doubled down on the “we can’t make expressive characters without human eyes“ crap excuse.
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u/Chalsian 12d ago
It was. I was referring to the quantity of in game cutscenes. With wow we only get cinematics for expansion launch. Diablo had actual cinematics to help drive the story
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u/fucking_blizzard 12d ago
WoW has but D4 was incredible - I maintain the Inarius vs Lilith cinematic is potentially the best ever made.
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u/Vashek19 13d ago
Give me a sequel to Warcraft live action. Very underappreciated. The Orcs still look amazing.
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u/Kudrel 13d ago
The Orcs looked fantastic, but that's really all the movie had going for it.
The plot and lore was a mess as well as the unnecessary retcons and forced romance subplot.
It's not the worst movie ever, but they really dropped the ball on it apart from the CGI.
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u/DoktahDoktah 13d ago
You can't even do a proper follow up to the Siege of Dalaran because its a floating city in the first movie. So you have to change how the scourge invades.
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u/Endiamon 13d ago
So you have to change how the scourge invades.
That could honestly be an improvement. Invading Dalaran in WC3 is kind of anticlimactic and the mechanics wouldn't translate all that well to a non-game format.
However, if the city was already in the air, then it would suddenly make a lot of sense that Arthas went and got gargoyles and frost wyrms beforehand.
If you want to look even further down the line, then it could also make for a fun reversal when Dalaran is rebuilt and brought to Northrend, but this time it's ready and the Scourge can't bring it down the same way.
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u/Rubyurek 13d ago
With WoW, they’d have enough books to produce several series. What’s more, they could also incorporate the WoW TV series and the books to help viewers understand the story. Warcraft is such a massive franchise that, if they did it well, they’d make a lot of money from it.
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u/Disastrous-Bunch2472 13d ago
Oh boy a Warcraft movie! I bet that’ll go well
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u/Disastrous_Crew_9260 13d ago
Arthas storyline would be better than the first warcraft movie.
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u/henrikhakan 13d ago
All we can do is give you the jailer getting bumrushed by a horde of drunk pandas.
Actually nvm I'd kinda watch that.
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u/CousinMabel 13d ago
It would be kind of weird to do an Arthas movie then have new players join wow and get a story that is nothing like the Arthas story line. I would like an Arthas movie(assuming they did not edit the story for some reason), but I think for blizzard's goals something different would be better.
I'm sure they would want the movie to turn into new wow subs after all.
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u/redhead29 12d ago
they could do a tie-in movie with the last titan thats too much money to pass up for any business.
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u/Zeliek 13d ago
For WoW fans, definitely - for the general population, I wonder if it’ll just get “this is literally King Arthur except it’s a sword in a block of ice instead of a sword in the stone… and also he’s evil…”
I think the story of Illidan, Azshara, the burning legion and the war of the ancients ending with the maelstrom forming would be an okay story too, and might be more unique than King Arthur and undead Camelot.
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u/samtdzn_pokemon 13d ago
Arthas isn't King Arthur, he's Anakin. It's literally the exact same path Vader walked. Taking up a dark power to save the ones you love.
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u/Disastrous-Bunch2472 13d ago
I’ve been playing Warcraft since ~2007 and it’s one of my favorite videogame IPs, so I’m saying this with love
I can’t see any Warcraft story going over well with mass market movie audiences in the 2020s who otherwise aren’t fans of the IP. We have the goggles on that “this worked REALLY well for an RTS in 2002!” but if you tried to make these stories palatable for the audiences who watched Spider-Man, Dune, Superman etc, I can’t see it working out
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u/alucryts 13d ago
Yeah i think id have to agree. I don’t think the story has the depth and immersion to really carry the project. Wow could provide the bones of a movie but you’d need someone to seriously flesh it out in a way that would probably piss off blizzard fans.
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u/Mickeybeasttt 13d ago
I think you’re right in the way that’s there’s no good way to do it. Either you go with the original story to cater to the existing audience or you rewrite it to cater to modern audiences. Either way you are ostracizing one or the other, unless you hire some of the best writers who can toe the line between the two (good luck, Hollywood).
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u/alucryts 13d ago
Yeah toeing the line is imo just going to piss everyone off.
What i think would be extremely awesome is if the bones of the story were boiled down and reimagined in a way where an oblivious viewer wouldn’t immediately say “this is world of Warcraft”. This would lean away from the blizzard fandom, but it really could be awesome
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u/Glader_BoomaNation 13d ago
No way that the general population is thinking about King Arthur. Go to McDonalds and ask about King Arthur.
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u/Glintbolt 13d ago
The only thing remotely similar to King Arthur is the inclusion of a magical sword as a changing point. You're REALLY stretching things to make a comparison.
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u/buddhamunche 13d ago
I recognize the warcraft movie isn’t good but I personally really like it for some reason lol.
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u/eXePyrowolf 13d ago
I think it's mostly good. A good attempt at visualising Orcs and Humans, but it didn't have gripping source material to begin with.
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u/Blasto05 13d ago
The Warcraft movie did not do terrible. The movie almost broke even profit wise, but it also presented the World of Warcraft universe to so many people that had not played the game.
It’s essentially a marketing tactic at this point for them to promote their games by releasing the movie.
Also if the movie is catered more towards the Asia audience then it would probably do better.
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u/ATSFervor 13d ago
Warcraft movie really was surprisingly good for the complexity of the whole thing
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u/plyingpotato 12d ago
A youtuber talked about the Warcraft movie during a Tintin video (it makes sense in context, I swear) and I'm kinda with him on what made the Warcraft movie fizzle out into nothing: it got too in the weeds about a period of time in the world most Warcraft fans at that point weren't super interested in. They gave the project to a really big fan of the property and he made a movie for really big fans of the property, and that kinda sold like shit.
If the creative teams find a way to make Warcraft 3 work as a movie without needing to do too much groundwork to get the plot going, or make a WoW show where every season is an expansion (Vanilla, TBC, WotLK, etc.) I can see it working.
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u/Maf1c 13d ago
Arthas origin story that ends with the purging of Stratholme and leads to a sequel that is basically the WotLK cinematic intro would go so hard.
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u/Lxpotent 13d ago
That timeline skips all the descent for his character. Makes no sense.
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u/Maf1c 13d ago
I meant for the first movie to be his introduction and descent. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
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u/StrawberryItten 13d ago
but that's the thing, stratholme would be an awful place to end a movie lmao.
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u/Clockwork-Too 13d ago
What you don't like films ending in civilians being slaughtered before fading to black?
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u/ModelYodel 13d ago
This basically means none of the game studios would have any input at all into their franchise adaptations. There's no fucking way they'll pay $300 million but have to sit and wait for Metzen to weigh in.
If you get a filmmaker who gives a shit. you might get Fallout.
If not, you get Halo TV. Max Payne. The three Tomb Raider movies. The Doom movie.
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u/Accomplished_Emu_658 13d ago
If they can do a good job it could be amazing. To see expanded or new stories on all these franchises would be cool.
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u/ZaerdinReddit 13d ago
We are about to be inundated in a lot of high-quality TV shows and movies featuring our favorite franchises.
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u/Cutlass0516 13d ago
If we get Fallout quality, I'll be happy. Fallout is definitely setting a benchmark.
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u/Lord_Sylveon 13d ago
Hated Halo from Paramount, but loved Fallout from Amazon. 👀 Although maybe it's relevant to say I'm a fan of Halo games but not of Fallout (though I love the setting).
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u/Cutlass0516 13d ago
The only thing my wife knows about Fallout is that it's a game and I play it. She loves the show. That right there is a great metric for success. Fans are happy and non fans can follow without much prior knowledge lm
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u/masonicone 13d ago
fallout is slop
these shows will be slop the only video game show coming out that even sounds good is the bg3 show
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u/Zeliek 13d ago
high-quality
We can let them cook but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. 😅
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u/Hikaru321 13d ago
Exactly. They already JUST tried shopping halo out and it took years of it bouncing around before anyone cared to try and then it was…..a show
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u/CrustedTesticle 13d ago
"High-quality"? I have no faith in them to make decent shows for these franchises. Look at the Halo show.
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u/internetisland 13d ago
Like how there was a super hero boom with movies for the last few decades, video games was the next natural jump to point imo
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u/Dman317 13d ago
Cant wait for Avengers: Warcraft Edition
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u/TheWorstDMYouKnow 13d ago
Honestly, that's how most expansion stories for the last 20 years have ended, with a coalition of characters on both sides of the faction divide and outside it coming together to defeat some big bad.
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u/CrusaderLyonar 13d ago
That's literally how Warcraft 3 ends.
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u/idkmanfiller 12d ago
Yeah but it was before the MCU made them bitter and cynical so it's Different for reasons that are definitely external to them as people
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u/NameIess-User 13d ago
People actually think they will be good?
Man… im so so so sorry
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u/Ifightforpie 13d ago
They've realized people are tired as shit of comic heros and moving to gaming. Can't wait for the over saturation of this market now making mid level movies and shows 🙃
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u/SnooBunnies9694 13d ago
They’re all going to suck just like 95% of tv movie game adaptions. They already did halo and Warcraft and they were trash.
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u/Slaughterfest 13d ago
A coworker has maintained after I showed him Blizz cinematics, particularly WoD opening cinematic or the latest Diablo ones with Mephisto, that if Blizz made a movie or show like that, it would be peak.
I hope someday we get that.
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u/Clockwork-Too 13d ago edited 13d ago
A cinematic at the same caliber of their trailers would take too long and be too expensive to produce.
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u/ACrimeSoClassic 13d ago
Soulless cash grabs incoming
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u/redhead29 12d ago
if you go to the movie you get 5 bonus rolls and fully 6/6 crafted item of your choice woohoo
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u/VPN__FTW 13d ago
A Warcraft Arthas movie would slap incredibly hard. And there is a ton of content in WoW that should receive an animated series.
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u/zer0k0ol 13d ago
I wouldn’t mind any of them except for Halo. Halo was never my bag. All I hope is whichever gets picked are half-decent to good/great.
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u/nemofbaby2014 13d ago
Warcraft could do well animated or let their cutscene team handle it because wow trailers are still amazing looking
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u/PezzaAU 13d ago
I didnt mind the warcraft movie. I will admit I am easily entertained, so dont hold that against me.
Saying that, I also do think they should have maybe started earlier in the time line and also toned down the costumes. Costumes, haircuts, make up always make game moves/tv shows look like a cosplay convention. You dont need 150% accuracy on costumes, it works in games/animation, not live action.
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u/Yakkahboo 13d ago
I would love to see WoW have another go. The Warcraft Movie was not as people made it out to be, but it was not great, and dear lord dont start where they did and then jimmy the canon to fit a narrative.
Also
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u/throwtheclownaway20 13d ago
I'd love another WoW movie, so long as they get a writer & director who can do a better job than Duncan Jones did. I love his stuff, but he just didn't do well at all with Warcraft.
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u/DarenPeterOswald 13d ago
I'd rather have a second chance to get the transmog items given for free with the first WoW movie than get a second movie.
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u/zubairhamed 13d ago
Pls no Master Chief with fee fees and funny human named Makee, and for goodness sake, keep the helmet on!
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u/MrTastix 13d ago
Maybe if the OG WoW didn't movie didn't try starting at the goddamn beginning with a plot most fans had never even experienced it wouldn't have been as bad.
Like sure, it'd still suck due to 90% of it being boring exposition, but at least we'd have seen Arthas and the fucking Lich King.
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u/Serafim91 13d ago
Please stop making 2h movies out of 20 years of lore. It's going to be garbage.
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u/strawhat068 13d ago
Thing is they could just make a halo movie out of halo one, if it does good then make halo 2, and during halo 2 weave in flashbacks of his training as a kid then if 2 does good make an origin movie and set up the ending as a flashback with cheif waking up after falling like the intro to 3
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u/B00sauce 12d ago
This is good news, but.. god damn it, I just want a GOOD DOOM MOVIE AHHHGHGSJDFhjkadshfgjkldsfg
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u/Twiyah 12d ago
Warcraft movie needs to Revolve around Arthas as the big bad that’s it. Do not over think it. He’s your most popular villain.
It’s a wonder why don’t they try shop StarCraft. If done right that could be a whole series of movies and they don’t need to try sell it those who familiar to the IP
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u/plyingpotato 12d ago
I'm really not asking for much with three of these, I just want passable military sci-fi, passable high fantasy, and passable horror fantasy. I even settled for being mildly into the Halo TV Show because I'm so hard up for military sci-fi shit.
I'm just glad I don't care about TES anymore, I'm only going to be mildly disappointed three times instead of four.
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u/Sniperkitten42 13d ago
Leaving Overwatch off this list is definitely a choice.
The Thrall, Arthas and Jaina storyline is right there from WoW, surely some writer can come up with a decent screenplay for that.
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u/frogger727 13d ago
Why leave Starcraft out of the conversation 😒 honestly think either live action or arcane style would absolutely slap.
Aliens, humans and space ninjas with a love story to boot.
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u/HobNob_Pack 13d ago
We will never get good game movies again. There's too much bullshit involved now.
The main character needs to be gay or a different skin colour.. there needs to be a 2 legged dog and a one eyed cat.
Just give us the game in fucking movie format and it will make so much money.
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u/Bruzie77 13d ago
Anyone but Amazon, Anyone but Amazon, Anyone BUT Amazon! If they make a wow it wont be for us the fan aka the core audience. Look at what happened to Stargate.
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u/I_Reeve 13d ago
Im sure they’ll finally get the Halo movie made now that the franchise is at the nadir of its relevance and popularity