The hope for a second Warcraft movie has actually faded. But Blizzard’s CGI team could easily handle this job – or could they?
Several years have passed since the release of the Warcraft movie. While the film was not a flop, it was not successful enough to guarantee a sequel. After years of waiting, most fans and even the director have now lost hope that the Warcraft movie will get a sequel.
And yet, I now believe that Blizzard would be more than capable of creating a second film completely by themselves – entirely in CGI.
23 minutes of CGI within an expansion: Yesterday, Blizzard released a compilation of all “Saurfang” cinematics. These are the accompanying videos to the current WoW expansion “Battle for Azeroth” and all created in extensive CGI:
They tell the story of Varok Saurfang, one of the elder Orcs in the Horde, who has survived several war chiefs, lost his son in the campaign against Arthas, and is now leading the rebellion against the Banshee Queen. There are several videos about honor, duty, and the desire to finally find a worthy death in battle that not only represents an escape but truly holds meaning. This story is told in just under 23 minutes of CGI videos – more than in any other WoW expansion.
I believe that everyone would agree with me that the cinematics were absolutely incredible. For many players, they were certainly the highlight of the expansion.
Something like this has always been wished for by fans: One of the biggest criticisms of Warcraft: The Beginning was that for some, the CGI technique did not match the human actors. Even back then, the wish was expressed: Rather a film completely in CGI, with no real sets or people. After all, Blizzard is known for the most impressive cinematics, so why not a whole film out of that?
Until now, the argument has always been that these CGI films are not only extremely resource-hungry but also take a lot of time. The “Old Warrior” part alone was said to have consumed over a year of planning. However, this does not mean that this one cinematic would tie up the entire team – in that case, they could hardly have published 4 such huge cinematics over the course of nearly a year.
If they manage to churn out a whopping 23 minutes of CGI over the course of 2 years (probably a bit less), then they should be able to produce an entire film in this style over the course of 4-5 years.
How could one market that? When it comes to movies, marketing is always a tricky business because in addition to pure production costs, there are also fees for theaters and advertising. But honestly? I wouldn’t need to see a Warcraft movie in theaters. Just sell it over Battle.net for 30€ or so and connect it with some “You get mount X or some transmog armor set in the game” action, so that more players have an incentive to view the film legally and not download it from the next illegal site.
This would also have the advantage of being able to create a film that is truly “for the fans” and not have to please “the regular moviegoers” who have no connection to the Warcraft world.
Yes, I know. In the end, this is just a wish and not very likely. But just last year has shown that Blizzard can release CGI cinematics at a scale that theoretically allows for producing a movie as well. Heaven, I would be excited about that.
Or how do you see it?
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