BlizzCon Warcraft Movie panel liveblog
The Warcraft Movie panel will begin at 2:15pm Pacific, and we'll be liveblogging it right here. We've heard that we may see some footage during the panel, and we're pretty excited to see what they've got. Duncan Jones and Chris Metzen will be talking about the film for an hour, and should have some amazing surprises in store.
Updates will be in reverse-chronological order, with newest updates at the top of the page. If you only want the latest update, you can stay near the top. If you missed the beginning of the panel, scroll to the bottom.
3:08PM And that's it for the panel -- movie will be out March 2016.
3:07PM Metzen led the Alliance cry, Rob led the Horde cry.
3:06PM Jones says they're starting to put together the sound for the film. They need a For the Horde and a For the Alliance and a For Azeroth. The audience for this panel will be in the film!
3:05PM One more thing they're going to do!
3:04PM Two new fan sites are being launched for the film. Fightforthehorde.com and Fightforthealliance.com -- you can go to them right now, pick a side.
3:03PM They were really intent on getting it right, they knew they couldn't give the fans of the games anything less.
3:02PM They pushed the VFX and motion capture beyond what they thought was possible for this film.
3:02PM Rob says you feel silly walking around in the gray pajamas with the hammer prop, but the moment he saw the footage, all that detail comes through, every eye twitch, every movement of hair. "It's like the cinematic trailer footage on crack."
3:01PM Jones said there was a point where nobody knew what they were going to look like. Orgrim was the first shot of the first orc they saw.
3:00PM Sticks out his belly, he's got this nice shoulder roll going as he stalks around the stage there. He said he hasn't done that since April, but that's the rough idea of how they had to work -- they physically carried themselves like orcs for the motion capture.
2:59PM Said there was a lot of physical stuff for it. Months of training to learn how to move and walk like an orc -- he's about to stomp around on the stage here and show us!
2:58PM Rob says Orgrim is the best character in the lore, the most handsome -- laughing. Says he loves playing him. Durotan is the wise chief, then you have the hard, not very bright bastard next to him. Evolution from someone's brother and friend to a leader in his own right.
2:57PM He's very excited to actually be in the Warcraft film. Metzen remembers visiting the set, everyone asked if he met Rob yet. They sat for 45 minutes just going off on raids. Rob went out for dinner with Nick Carpenter, bent his ear about everything game related.
2:55PM Kazinsky started playing a warrior in Burning Crusade, got really addicted in Wrath, been a death knight since 3.1. Over 500 days played, Celestial Defender, Death's Demise, Light of Dawn, "Someone just dropped his nerd d*ck on the table"
2:54PM He was flanked by armored guards -- that Doomhammer is apparently pretty heavy!
2:54PM They are bringing out the Doomhammer -- and Rob Kazinsky is on stage with it!
2:53PM There's a shot of Orgrim Doomhammer -- it's a slide, but that's an astonishingly lifelike orc.
2:52PM We've got a shot of Cooper as King Llane -- the armor is actually on the stage as well to look at.
2:52PM They filmed Garona live-action, not motion capture.
2:51PM Ruth Negga will also be in the film -- they flipped by the slide very quickly there. (Ed. Note -- she will be playing Lady Taria, Queen of Stormwind.)
2:50PM Ben Schnetzer will be playing Khadgar, Paula Patton will be playing Garona.
2:49PM Clancy Brown will be playing Blackhand. Clancy was originally the voice of Thrall in the original Warcraft Adventures.
2:49PM Dominic Cooper is playing King Llane -- the slides appear to be out of order here.
2:48PM Daniel Wu is playing Gul'dan.
2:48PM Rob Kazinsky will be playing Orgrim.
2:47PM Metzen -- Medivh was the rock star of this era. Says it's funny talking about spoilers for this thing because we know this story already. Said Foster really brought the level of weight required for the character.
2:47PM "He has an ability to communicate things through nuance. He's incredibly magnetic. He's our Medivh, and it feels like the right guy for the character we created."
2:46PM Ben Foster is playing Medivh.
2:46PM The process for the orcs wasn't about makeup, they needed gray pajamas and plenty of dots for the motion capture. They had to go through a session where they acted like orcs, like 500 lb creatures with appropriate posture and attitude, they had to practice and pull it off on a daily basis.
2:45PM Durotan is being played by Toby Kebbell.
2:44PM They are starting from the start -- Warcraft, all of it comes from a very specific chain of events, and they are going to start way back there. Biggest question was whether or not the orcs would be relateable.
2:43PM Storytelling wise, they know what the film is. "It's Avatar and Lord of the Rings at the same time," visual effects wise. They're working on special effects now.
2:43PM When Metzen says we are in good hands, he means it -- he's seen the whole thing. It feels very uniquely Warcraft. It's distinctively Warcraft.
2:42PM Metzen and Carpenter and a few others went and watched it, grabbed a quick dinner, then came back and watched the whole thing all over again. "To finally see this thing come together, fried every single circuit I had."
2:41PM Alliance -- Lothar is Travis Fimmel, from Vikings. Incredibly talented, brings something unique to Lothar. In Metzen's head, Lothar was always an older dude, but Fimmel killed it -- created a character with real depth. Metzen has seen a rough cut of the entire film.
2:39PM We're getting a character list for the film!
2:38PM From a tech standpoint, motion capture on set was an incredible challenge. They were able to get to the point where the actors were translated in real time -- the screen was actually displaying the actors as orcs while the picture was being filmed.
2:38PM Wetsonhofer said it was awesome and amazing to stand in Stormwind. Jones said they built location sets -- they built Stormwind, they built it up to the point where you could walk around, look at signs. Metzen says he got to stand in the main street of Stormwind -- mailbox, bulletin board and all. The level of detail on the set was overwhelming.
2:36PM It's got the feel of a live-action movie, very organic. Westenhofer has been playing since Warcraft 2, started playing WoW during the original alpha test -- he's an Alliance player, feels a twinge of guilt working so hard on the orcs. Out of respect for all that ganked him, he is delivering orcs that will make everyone proud.
2:35PM They went to the top leaders of motion capture, put motion capture cameras actually on the set, orc and human actors right next to each other, working side by side.
2:34PM The approach for VFX is a very realistic approach. They knew early on that the orcs had to resonate as much as the humans. Bill Westenhofer, VFX Supervisor on the film, said Jones wanted to make it feel like they were just filming a live-action film with no effects.
2:33PM Metzen and Nick Carpenter went to Legendary, and they saw a shot from a scene where Durotan is in a tent with a sleeping and pregnant Draka, and he's just looking off into the depths of the sherpa. Metzen says he just jumped into Nick's lap, "Oh my god!" -- it took him straight into the story, despite it being an orc.
2:31PM There is a screening room upstairs with footage from the film -- shots of the orcs!
2:31PM Jones says he surrounded himself with experts in Warcraft lore for the film.
2:30PM The relationship with Legendary and everyone on staff has been fantastic -- they've been hard at work distilling the world into a story, and a movie, that we'll love. Metzen believes we're in really good hands with Jones and Legendary, and we'll get a movie we're going to love.
2:29PM Metzen says they've been wanting to bring the game to film for a long time, but what if they get it wrong, there's a lot of anxiety surrounding that. They'd been working on it for a while, but the comfort level was never that great. Jones walked in and said "this movie has to be 50% Alliance and 50% Horde, it has to be both." Metzen fell in love.
2:27PM Hardwick wants to know how they are staying true to Warcraft. Jones said working as closely with the developers -- Metzen and others, was a big part of it, trying to keep them involved, bringing them up to the set.
2:26PM They're trying to tell two stories here, humans vs. orcs, but they want to allow the audience to care about both sides -- both human AND orc.
2:25PM What were the first steps? Jones says there was a pre-existing, human-centric, Alliance-centric treatment from Raimi that didn't work. Jones wanted to follow heroes from both sides -- Lothar and Durotan, how the two heroes found themselves in an unavoidable conflict.
2:24PM Chris Metzen just joined the folks on stage!
2:24PM "In some ways, anything can be a film if there's a good idea for it." Jones thinks World of Warcraft has so many stories that the challenge was to find a story that would work for a single film. They went right back to the beginning, all the way to Orcs and Humans.
2:23PM Duncan Jones is on stage, started playing with Lost Vikings, joined World of Warcraft and has played it for years. Heard that Sam Raimi was working on the film, was excited and jealous -- but fate allowed him to take over.
2:21PM Chris Hardwick is hosting the panel -- we've got movie props on stage!
The panel will begin soon - stay tuned.
