April 19, 2016 by Ryan Ward
Despite Hollywood’s tendency to destroy video game players’ dreams on the big screen, both gamers and geeks have been thrilled at the concept of a Warcraft movie since it was original teased back in 2006. And when it was announced that Moon director, Duncan Jones, had signed on to direct and Blizzard was playing a big part in the film’s development, everything seemed good in the world of Azeroth.
But since that initial reveal a decade ago and over the course of the film’s development, World of Warcraft‘s subscription numbers have steadily declined year-by-year and it’s gotten to the point where Blizzard no longer even wants to talk about the exact number of players still playing their popular MMO… yet, Universal and Legendary Pictures are still betting big on the Warcraft brand with a reported $100 million invested in the film. Blizzard’s latest game, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, has also helped grow the Warcraft brand tremendously over the past two years, but the question still remains if card games and nostalgia are enough to put moviegoers in theater seats this summer.
Warcraft was originally scheduled to go to war against Star Wars back in December of 2015, but was wisely pulled from that fight by Universal. Now, the film is still tracking poorly and box office forecasts have it losing its big opening weekend battle to The Conjuring 2. The latest trailer also seems to show more signs that Universal isn’t sure how Warcraft is going to play out at the box office and worried that the first trailer didn’t do enough to sell viewers. Resorting to more action shots and an odd choice of music, the film’s marketing seems to be all over the place — which isn’t a good sign and seems an awfully lot like other recent big budget bombs John Carter and Jupiter Ascending.
Warcraft is set for release on June 10, 2016 and stars Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Clancy Brown, and Dominic Cooper.
