Before Duncan Jones became a part of the upcoming Warcraft movie, the film was previously developed by famed director Sam Raimi, who had a lot of success in bringing Marvel’s Spider-Man to the screen. During a panel at PAX East (via Gamespot), Jones shared some details on the version Raimi was working on and why Jones thought it was problematic.
In taking a look at the script that was written under Raimi’s vision, Jones stated: “When I got involved, [Blizzard] had already been through the hardships of not getting the film made. And there was kind of a pause, a stalled process as they worked out how they were going to move forward. I had been tracking [the Warcraft movie], purely as a fan, knowing that Sam Raimi was involved. I wanted to see the movie. I heard that he had decided to part ways and go do Oz.”
According to Jones, Raimi’s version featured heroes as the good guys and the Orcs as the evil villains. That’s not the version Jones wanted to make. “I really wanted to know what the film was going to be like,” he said. “So I managed to get a sneaky look at the script and I was like ‘Ohh, it’s good, but there’s something really wrong with it.’ And it was the fact that it was human heroes against Orc villains. To me, that was fundamental misstep.”
Jones wanted to tell a story with heroes on both sides, adding, “This was a movie that shows the heroes on all sides. As much as you can, make it half human, half orc as far as what we portray.”
Warcraft finally hits theaters on June 10.
