One of the big sticking points from a lot of the critical drubbing of Duncan Jones’ movie adaptation Warcraft [read our review here] is the film’s break-neck pace. Well it turns out – as Luke and Oli theorised on the Flickering Myth Podcast last week – that around 40 minutes were cut from the movie.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, Jones reveals that his original cut of Warcraft (or Warcraft: The Beginning as its known elsewhere) was 2 hours 40 minutes, and this was trimmed down to 2 hours. One of the scenes to get cut? An Easter egg that would have tied Warcraft to his previous two movies Moon and Source Code.
“If you know Moon or Source Code, there’s this very sweet, very talented guy named Chesney Hawkes who wrote this really, really big hit in Britain called ‘I Am The One And Only,'” he jokes. “I used it as an alarm clock in Moon, and a ring tone in Source Code – and I actually got him to do a version as a bard in Warcraft.”
He adds: “We weren’t able to keep it in the cut. But somehow, maybe, I’ll just sneak it into the Twitterverse… he did a Warcraft-medievally version of his single, and it’s just brilliant. Unfortunately I was the only one who thought it was hilarious.”
Warcraft is set for release on May 29th in the UK and June 10th in the US, with Duncan Jones (Moon) directing 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 Kebbell (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 June 2, 2016. Updated May 6, 2023.
