If you’ll remember, the 2016 film functioned more like a prequel by focusing on Durotan instead of Thrall, who is regarded by many as the main character of the franchise. The writers also have plenty of history to adapt.
Despite its lukewarm reception in the states, the original film still holds the record for highest-grossing video game movie of all time ($439 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo). While plot details appear to non-existent (Ritchman’s scoop is locked behind his Patreon account), revisiting Blizzard’s RTS epic may not be such a bad idea for Legendary Studios. You’d think that a sequel would be permanently off the table based on such weak earnings, but according to insider Daniel Ritchman (via MovieWeb), a Warcraft 2 is actually in the works. "Then, hopefully, if people read the graphic novel and get really excited about it, I’m gonna try and use that as a way to leverage getting the movie made.Despite doing relatively well in China, Warcraft was a huge flop in the United States, earning just over $24 million at the domestic box office. "It's going to be a tricky one to finance in this era where original material on a bigger budget is difficult to get made, so I definitely want to do the graphic novel so at least it will exist in some form," he told Polygon. Jones had said he had plans for a third movie in that connected universe, but for now, it's only a graphic novel. It is in the same universe as his 2009 breakout hit Moon starring Sam Rockwell. Warcraft stars Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell, Robert Kazinsky, Clancy Brown, and Daniel Wu.Īs for Jones, he went on to release the low-budget sci-fi movie Mute for Netflix in 2018. Looking at the numbers through that light, it's not hard to understand why the Warcraft sequels aren't coming. Using that math, ScreenRant estimates that Warcraft actually only made $145 million, which is below its reported production budget and this number doesn't even count marketing expenses. In America, a film studio typically takes home around 50 percent off the box office.
However, as ScreenRant points out, Hollywood studios only make about 25 percent of a film's gross in China, so Warcraft's $213.5 million in China netted Legendary only $53.4 million. Warcraft had a reported budget of $160 million, so $433 million in worldwide grosses sounds like a success story. On a worldwide basis, Warcraft is the 258th biggest movie ever, ahead of Detective Pikachu and numerous other franchise movies. China accounted for a massive $213.5 million of the movie's international grosses. Warcraft only made $47.4 million in the US and Canada, but it made $386.3 million-or 89.1 percent of its total box office revenue-from overseas markets. So it was a unique moment in time for experiencing what kind of craziness studio filmmaking could be." And then Legendary was bought by Wanda while we were making the movie. So there were more points as to what the film needed to be. It was working with Legendary, I was working with Blizzard and obviously Blizzard were very passionate about what film should be because they are who had been with the game for so long and they didn’t want to detract from that. Originally, we were Warner Brothers, I was working with Atlas, I was working with Universal. "I got a chance to experience multiple studios takes on what a film of this size should be on one movie because it was originally.
"It was an absolute… The essence of studio filmmaking," he said. Jones said this three-film arc for Warcraft would have included further storytelling for Gul'dan and Thrall, and on a wider level, how the orcs left their home world to live in Azeroth.Īlso in the interview, Jones spoke about the challenging nature of working with so many different stakeholders to get Warcraft made. I genuinely think that in retrospect and as time has moved on, people are starting to appreciate the film than maybe the critics did when it first came out but unfortunately I don't think we're going to get to make any more."
I made the film as best I could on the first film hoping that it would connect with an audience. "It's unfortunate now, you gotta try and go with your harp on these things. "It really would have been pretty special," he said of his plans for a trilogy.
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