It was starting to feel like things were a bit too quiet from the production of Duncan Jones’ big screen adaptation of popular video game series Warcraft, but in the past couple of weeks we’ve had quite a bit. We got our first look at Orgrim played by Robert Kazinsky and now we’ve got an interview with Jones himself, who compares his Orcs to the Green Goliath of The Avengers.
He absolutely nailed that character,” Jones told Wired about Jeff White of ILM, himself a avid Warcraft fan. “And orcs feel like they may have some of the same genetic background as the Hulk.”
Since the release of Mad Max: Fury Road and its myriad of practical effects, some moviegoers have started to question the authenticity of special effects in movies, which is something Jones is trying to avoid in his movie. “We tried to do a lot of large, in-camera sets so that we had an actual reality that the film was built on top of,” Jones explained. “Some of the time we had [actors doing motion capture] on location, some of the time we had them on set, sometimes there was green screen.”
It’s also not unusual in this day and age for a sequel to be announced before the first one has even hit cinema screens, is this something Jones would be interested in? “If I have the good fortune to work with the same group of people,” he said, “I’d love to.”
Legendary’s WARCRAFT is a 3D epic adventure of world-colliding conflict based upon Blizzard Entertainment’s globally-renowned universe. Directed by Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code) and written by Charles Leavitt and Duncan Jones, the film is a Legendary Pictures, Blizzard Entertainment and Atlas Entertainment production. The producers are Charles Roven, Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni, Alex Gartner and Stuart Fenegan. Jillian Share, Brent O’Connor, Michael Morhaime and Paul Sams serve as executive producers. Rob Pardo, Chris Metzen, Nick Carpenter and Rebecca Steel Roven co-produce. WARCRAFT will be released by Universal Pictures.
Warcraft is set for release on June 10th, 2016 with a cast that includes Robert Kazinsky (Pacific Rim) as Orgrim Doomhammer, Dominic Cooper (Captain America: The First Avenger) as King Llane Wrynn, Travis Fimmel (Vikings) as Anduin Lothar, Ben Foster (Ain’t Them Body Saints) as Medivh, Ben Schnetzer (Pride) as Khadgar, Ruth Negga (World War Z), Clancy Brown (Starship Troopers) as Blackhand, Toby Kebbel (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) as Durotan, Daniel Wu (The Man with the Iron Fists) as Gul’Dan and Paula Patton (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) as Garona.
Originally published May 28, 2015. Updated March 1, 2020.
