Last week, rumors surfaced that Colin Farrell had been cast in a leading role for Warcraft. Today, Legendary Pictures (the production company behind the Christopher Nolan Batman movies and this summer’s Pacific Rim) announced that Warcraft will be hitting U.S. theaters in a little over two years. The release date for the flick is now officially December 18, 2015.
Warcraft will be based on Blizzard Entertainment’s popular MMO World of Warcraft. The developer’s video game world already has massive story arcs and a deep history established by both the video games and a range of other media, including several novels. Chris Metzen, Blizzard’s SVP of story and franchise development will be a co-producer on the movie project.
Director Duncan Jones of Moon and Source Code fame has signed on to direct the movie. Jones has co-written a screenplay for the flick with Charles Leavitt, the writer of Blood Diamond and K-PAX. In addition to the Colin Farrell rumor, Paula Patton is also rumored to be a part of the project along with Paul Dano, Travis Fimmel, Anson Mount, and Anton Yelchin.
With video games now more popular than ever, movie studios are looking to the games industry for new IP. Though Hollywood’s track record with video game properties is dismal, a respect for source material and directors of Jones’ caliber could quickly propel video game movies (especially one based on the most popular MMO of all time) to the heights currently reserved for comic book movies.
(Image courtesy Blizzard)
