Why Sam Raimi Won't Direct the World of Warcraft Movie

So if you haven't heard already, Sam Raimi is supposedly going to do a World of Warcraft movie. Someone asked tonight what I thought of it. They knew I love Sam Raimi, as the Evil Dead trilogy gets a lot of mileage in my DVD player. These are my comfort movies. I grew up on them. If ever I'm down, or bored, or just what to be fucking entertained I throw them in. My wife basically bought me a bust of Ash for our anniversary. I've dressed as Ash for Halloween. I've bought multiple editions of the films, comics, and action figures. I'm a fan. I like the first two Spider-man films as well. The less said about 3 the better (Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.) But Sam Raimi is the man. I even dig that he wears suit to direct his films like he's Alfred Hitchcock or something. He's old school.

And I play World of Warcraft. I'm a level 42 blood elf paladin. And no I can't believe I just typed that (and fuck you, Mikey). I resisted it for awhile. Because I, like probably many of you, thought it was mostly for mouth breathers and the nerdiest of the nerds. I dug video games but fuck. Come on. I wasn't that lame. But I was always a little curious. And then I read an article about some "hollywood types" who played WOW. There were a ton of effects people on the list. As was to be expected. And that was kind of cool. And Milas Kunis. She was pretty hot. And James fucking Cameron. That was the one that pushed me to it. If it was good enough for him, well fuck. I started playing and I'm glad I did. I'm not obsessive about it. I really don't have the time to be. It's taken me a long time to my character to 42. And I don't have any alts (alternative characters, noob). But it's fun. It's definitely not the only game I play, currently I'm addicted to Battlefield 1943, but I log in at least once a week.

So what do I think of Sam Raimi directing a World of Warcraft movie? Well I think it will stand on the shoulders of Peter Jackson's Halo movie. As in it's never going to happen. Yeah it would make money. Yeah people would go see it. Yeah you could make toys to sell to kids. But Hollywood executives don't get video games. It's easy to say in theory that you're going to make a movie based on a video game, but it's a whole different ball game to actually make one. They'll hire a name script writer, who will poop out a script. The executives will look at it. Then hire another script writer. And they still won't get it. The executive will have an intern play the game and report back to him. Then they'll hire another script writer and the exec will tell them to put a giant spider in it. Then the script will come in and they'll start working up a budget. And the exec will see the budget, say, "Fuck that, it's based on a video game. Not a comic book. That's way too much fucking money." And shelve it. So it's hard for me to get excited for a bit of news that was obviously put out there, very early in the development cycle, for the San Diego Comic Con. It's basically digital carnival barking. Creating hype. Creating news. But not creating product. This movie will never happen.