Many decades ago people were begging Blizzard for a Warcraft series and Blizzard refused because they did not believe that it would be successful.
Then Arcane happened and the entire world wept at the tragic story. League of Legends player numbers at an all time high.
Then The Witcher happened and male gamers all over the world started questioning their sexual orientation after seeing Henry Cavill as Geralt. The Witcher 3 player numbers shot to the top of the Steam charts on the same day the first episode aired.
Then Edgerunners happened and Cyberpunk suddenly had more players online than on release. People are still crying themselves to sleep from this tragic and moving storyline.
My question to Bobby Kotick is, how is it possible that at the time of the community asking for a Warcraft series all those franchises did not even exist and yet they all left Warcraft in the dust? What is it that Blizzard management is lacking?
Cause they tried that with the Warcraft movie and we all saw how that turned out.
Also, do not forget forget that it is not a one way street. There are plenty of game TV series that flop (take halo for a recent example), so it is not as simple as it sounds.
In the end of the day, to get a show to succeed, you need competent people that actually are PASSIONATE about the product, and I do not believe there are many that still are in Warcraft (well, mostly in blizzard, as the company has taken so many Ls).
World of warcraft doesnt have the ability to converted into a story people would want realistically. Because WoWs story is built to be played. Not experienced.
League of Legends lore wise. Is alot easier to portray and is told from a source outside of the game, you do not play it.
Witcher can be easily translated into a fighting movie because its story can be morphed away while still making sense.
World of Warcraft however simply can not be, its lore is throughout the game. Moving it away from the core WoW story would simply make it unrecognisable due to how many other games run on the same concept and at best it will be poor.
Unfortunately hollywood has proven time and again that they have no respect for the source material of the thing they are trying to put on the small or big screen so we end up with inferior adaptations because people like JJ Abrams think they know better then the person who created the universe they get to play in
the warcraft movie has little in common with the game it was based on i still remember how disappointed i was watching the wing commander movie it was completely unlike the games granted you can’t really blame hollywood for that it was just chris roberts being stupid
Also don’t forget that The Witcher was a book/series of stories long before it was a computer game. The game was built from the story not the story from the game like we have with WoW.
I think it would be better being an animated series.
Maybe even 2 animated series per season, for the horde perspective and for the alliance perspective.
If there was to be a TV series around Warcraft Universe, i really don’t want to see the main story plotline adapted. The best they could do is to create an original cast of characters and plant their adventures in Azeroth, outside of the main storyline or aside it.
One great of this example could be the story of the Lotr: The third Age or Lord of the Ring Online that speaks about characters that follow the fellowship steps or deal with another menace on the side, only crossing the path of the Main Characters once in a while. Typically, in The Third Age, the characters cross their path with Faramir, Frodo and Sam at the Battle of Osgiliath, while trying to reach Minas Tirith the Regent his son’s broken horn.
In that way, there’s place for Fan Service without rewriting the whole story for the adaptation and without giving too much screen time to Main Characters. The first problem of the Warcraft Movie was to try to put too many known locations in the movie for references, while forgetting some history facts , like the fact Dalaran was a grounded city until the pre-patch of Wotlk. Giving less screen time to a known character or location reduce the number of error that could be made in the details, while using them as great possible cameo.
People assumed the movie to be CGI (but that is hella expensive. And thats putting it lightly). So ye Animated would potentially hit better. As long as they stay true to the source material.
The Books should have been turned into a series a long time ago given how important they are for the ingame lore as well.
Tbh, i impute fault on Ryan Jonhson and the fact this trilogy was not written as one farter more than JJ Abrams in Star Wars case. Sure Abrams did not helped by not giving a clear direction to the story ahead, but ultimately, the reasons behind the chaotic mess that was this trillogy is because the writer did not wrote the general ideas for the trilogy before giving it to a Film Director. Star Wars should have been treated as a commissioned film more than the Frankenstein monster it became because of two Directors not heading in the same direction. Ryan Jonhson just tried to end the trilogy on his terms and make a 180 on theme started in the first movie, which was just a bad idea for coherence.
