Warcraft Director Blames Studios and Blizzard for Movie's Failures

If you saw the Warcraft film and aren’t Chinese, then there’s a better-than-decent chance you thought it was lacking in some key areas; namely, it wasn’t very good. You wouldn’t be alone with that assessment, as director Duncan Jones has been very vocal in the past about his dissatisfaction with the project, and how much it broke his heart as a Warcraft fan himself.

Well, speaking with SyFy, he elaborated on his past comments regarding the movie, and called directing the whole experience a “Political minefield”—both because the studios involved and Blizzard themselves were all very keen to inject themselves into the increasingly convoluted film.

"It was mainly studio politics. You know, Legendary had an incredibly turbulent period while we were making Warcraft. They were associated with Warner Bros. They left Warner Bros. and joined Universal. They were sold to Wanda, this Chinese conglomerate. They lost or replaced a number of their producing staff halfway through our movie." 

"And at the same time as all of that, we were also working with Blizzard, who understandably were very careful about what happened with the movie because their bread and butter was the game Warcraft, which was bringing in a billion dollars a year for them. So, whatever we did with the movie was likely to be small potatoes compared to how important the game was for them. So it was really a very active political landscape."

Politics are the bane of even the most well-intentioned films, and it’s hard not to lament how much better that movie could have been if every overreaching party, Blizzard included, had decided to behave themselves and trust the big boys with their toys.

He also said that if he were to make another, he’d want it to have “a lower budget, [and] less cooks in the kitchen”.

Makes sense. It’s likely we’ll see a sequel with how well it did in China, so maybe he’ll get that chance. But less cooks seems unlikely.