Principle photography on the upcoming Warcraft film has wrapped. What this means is that the film is now heading into post-production, which is the final stage of filmmaking before the movie can be released.
If you don't know much about the way movies are made, it's generally divided into three stages - pre-production, production, and post-production. Pre-production is the planning stage. The script is written, costumes and sets are designed, actors are cast, and the logistics are figured out. Even a small production will need a pretty meaty pre-production, because filmmaking is an absurdly complicated process. And for a big-budget production like Warcraft, with an established brand and a clear intention to make a real blockbuster, you can bet that this process was extra-long. A lot of things can change during this phase, and you'll recall that the film was originally going to be directed by Sam Raimi.
Production is what most people think of when they think of filmmaking. Here, you have the cast and crew on set (or on location, which just means they're filming in a place that already exists rather than building sets) and you're actually recording the performances of actors.
Post-production then entails editing the film (which is where the editor takes all the raw footage - like the same scene shot from many different angles - and cuts them together in such a way that the narrative flows. This is a really cool but also really meticulous process,) scoring it, completing digital effects, adding sound effects, mixing the sound, and manipulating the footage to have the right sort of color balance. Additionally, often you'll get pick-ups, which are additional scenes that must be shot either because the filmmakers are unsatisfied with what they got the first time, or sometimes they are scenes that they just didn't get during production for a number of reasons. Additionally, sometimes these are new scenes written in to fill in some plot hole or make the flow of the story work better.
Depending on the film, this process can take a long time, and again, given the complexity of an epic fantasy film, you can bet that it'll take a long time for Warcraft.
Anyway, while this doesn't mean that the movie can just come out quite yet, it's a huge milestone.
I still have no idea if the movie will be any good. Historically, video game movies have generally been crap. Only a handful of them have been able to elevate to the level of mediocre, and there hasn't ever been one to actually stand proud as a truly good movie.
Why is that?
Well, speaking in general terms, often the problem is having "too many cooks in the kitchen." Any time there's a film with a very large budget, there tend to be a lot of investors, and because these people are paying in part for the film, they have the right to influence the way the product is made. Sometimes, if there's a tested producer or director, these investors might stand back and let them do their work, but when money's involved, people get nervous. Unfortunately, while those people have every right to worry about how their money is being put to use, conflicting opinions can also dilute the artistic vision of the filmmakers.
On the other hand, sometimes a tyrannical or cult-leader-like producer or director can make bizarre decisions and no one will be willing to question them (ahem, Star Wars prequels.)
There's also the problem of how video games are viewed by the public. Video games are a bigger industry than film these days, but there is still a stigma attached to them as being simplistic toys for children. It's a process that's already begun, but I expect that as time goes on, we're going to see this attitude evaporate, as more and more mature adults will have grown up as gamers.
Perhaps the most spectacularly terrible video game film was one of if not the first: the Super Mario Bros. film. The makers of that film had an utter disregard for the appeal of the Mario series. Rather than playing up the bright-colored, cartoony aesthetic, they just decided to make their own strange, dark, late 80s/early 90s-feeling urban dystopia that had just nothing to do with the Mario games. This was a purely cynical move to attach the Mario brand to a big pile of crap and hope that this would result in a big box-office return.
Thankfully, I don't think there's quite that attitude on the Warcraft set. Warcraft is far more story-driven than Mario games, and it's good to hear that Duncan Jones has played the games, and showed enough familiarity with the setting to fight for a Horde side of the plot (the biggest red flag I could see with this film would be if the Orcs were depicted as Tolkien-esque monsters with nothing redemptive about them.)
But while that pitfall may be avoided, there are others that one could fall into.
Given the stigma that video games have, and particularly video game movies, a lot of talented filmmakers don't want to be attached to these projects. Any person who works in the film industry knows that a big flop can really hurt one's career. This is probably worst for actors and directors (who tend to be the people that the public actually knows about,) but public reputation is not the only thing to look out for. Those within the industry are also paying attention to your projects, and they will be looking at those less public roles. Given the propensity for video game movies to flop, a lot of people are wary of getting involved in such a project.
While Duncan Jones has a lot of respect for his clever sci-fi films, this is a hell of a step up into the big leagues. It's something of a make-or-break project for him. But in terms of cast, I don't think I'm all that familiar with anyone who's been mentioned to be in it. Granted, you don't need to be famous to be a good actor (in an ideal world, it would go the other way around,) but the lack of star power could mean fewer people go to see it, and while the quality of the film is what most of us are individually interested in, the industry that is producing it is all about getting the most tickets sold.
There's another interesting factor to blockbuster filmmaking that has come up in recent years. For a long time, over half the profits from a movie would come from the domestic box office. But in the last decade or so, a lot of that has come from overseas markets. Places like China and Europe and really places all over the world are now a major factor in the strategy to maximize a film's money-making potential. The consequence of this is that films need to appeal broadly. Translating into different languages often risks losing some of the nuance of a film's dialogue. Translating into a different culture also requires that things get boiled down to simpler ideas. A film that deals heavily in class issues in South Boston might not be so resonant to people living in Shenzhen who are only vaguely aware that Boston is a city in America. But when there's a clear good guy who is handsome, tall and muscular and he's fighting a guy with a freaking skull on his costume, it's pretty clear who you're rooting for.
The thing that's tough is that nuance is generally what makes a story really good, but nuance is also really hard to communicate broadly, even before you translate the film into different languages and send it to radically different cultures.
So will the Warcraft film be good? I don't know. I hope it is, but that's what I've hoped for a lot of things. I think rather than hoping for a Lord of the Rings-quality epic, which is too high a standard, I'll be pleased if the film can at least get Warcraft right. This is the First War, so yes the Horde are the bad guys, but we need to see the side of the Horde that regrets it. We need to see Durotan mourning the corruption of his people, even as he fights alongside them. We also need some wacky humor, because it's not Warcraft without that. I'm sure they'll deliver on the spectacle (that's one thing that Hollywood has down to a science these days.) And I want the audience that doesn't play the games to be shocked when the movie ends with Stormwind being overrun and Anduin Lothar taking young Varian north to Lordaeron.
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