Raimi’s Warcraft movie stuck behind Oz prequel

The Warcraft film got a boost earlier in the year, when attached director Sam Raimi dropped the fourth Spider-Man movie in order to concentrate on the Legendary Pictures interpretation. But, the world is all swings and roundabouts, and Raimi has recently confirmed that he's put Warcraft on the back-burner, so that he can concentrate on a Wizard of Oz prequel, Oz: The Great And Powerful.

Raimi apparently signed up for the new film in June of this year, leading to a heavy-weight battle to see which of his two potential blockbusters would be focussed on first. Unfortunately for gamers, it looks like Sam might have chosen Disney - with the company expecting him to start production in 2011.

The project is being touted as the next big 3D family event, following in the footsteps of Alice in Wonderland. Robert Downey Junior has been approached for the title character - nothing confirmed yet, but it's "looking good" after a lukewarm start.

With L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz now in the public domain, Hollywood is buzzing with a number of remakes, adaptations and interpretations - in addition to Disney's version, Universal Pictures are working on turning musical Wicked into a film, and New Line / Warner Bros were working on a version themselves, until Guillermo del Toro turned it down.

So - sorry, Warcraft fans, we might be waiting a little while longer before we see Blizzard's handiwork appearing on the silver screen.

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This story was featured in Episode 5 of GamePron News:

4 Responses to “Raimi’s Warcraft movie stuck behind Oz prequel”

1. GamePron News Season 1, Episode 5 « GamePron says:

   October 19, 2010 at 4:42 pm

   [...] also confirm the poorly-kept secret that Dota 2 is in development, the disappointing news that the Warcraft movie has been put on the backburner again, and the rock-tastic announcement that Tenacious D will be [...]

   Reply
2. Mass Effect movie to be discussed at Comic-Con « GamePron says:

   July 6, 2011 at 9:56 pm

   [...] company behind the project (and The Dark Knight and Where the Wild Things Are, not to mention the Warcraft movie with Sam Raimi) has today unveiled its plans for the convention – and nobody was quite [...]

   Reply
3. DOOM producer announces Space Invaders movie « GamePron says:

   July 10, 2011 at 8:46 pm

   [...] adaptations being thrown around Hollywood at the moment. Of course, there’s Mass Effect and Warcraft, and Uncharted and Heavy Rain – all AAA titles with big-name writers and hefty chunks of plot [...]

   Reply
4. Sam Raimi no longer attached to Warcraft film « Player Attack says:

   July 19, 2012 at 4:08 pm

   [...] post-production on Oz before he could think too much about Warcraft (something we first heard about back in 2010), and it doesn't seem like that plan worked for [...]

   Reply

Article Details

• published: October 10th, 2010
• by: Jessica Citizen
• in: Company: Blizzard, Company: Legendary Pictures, Game: Warcraft, Game: World of Warcraft, Movie, Sam Raimi, Warcraft movie
• comments: 4

Author Bio:

I like video games, fishing, Depeche Mode, long walks on the beach, writing discussion papers and cups of tea. Not necessarily in that order.

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