Sam Raimi to Direct World of Warcraft Movie

Published by Jeff Leins on: July 22nd, 2009

It has been almost two years since Legendary Pictures and video game developer Blizzard Entertainment announced a live-action World of Warcraft movie. The film, once scheduled for a 2009 release, has finally found a director.

Sam Raimi (Spider-Man 1-4, the Evil Dead series, Drag Me to Hell) has signed to direct an adaptation of the most popular massive multiplayer online game in history. The service currently feeds the addiction of 11.5 million monthly subscribers. According to Variety, the plan is for the filmmaker to supervise pre-production while he shoots Spider-Man 4 for Columbia next year.

Legendary Pictures is the same studio who created 300 and the current Batman franchise, so Warcraft is in good hands. Charles Roven, who produced The Dark Knight, has been added to the production along with Raimi. Good news all around for geeks.

“At its core, ‘Warcraft’ is a fantastic, action-packed story,” Raimi said in a statement. In 2007, the focus of the story was on the growing tensions between the horde and alliance factions in the Warcraft universe. The plot, told from the alliance perspective, ultimately lead to a culmination of the unrest and an epic battle sequence. One of the producers has said the budget will be over $100 million and they are aiming for an unsurprising PG-13 rating.

Below is the first concept art image released as BlizzCon 2007: