Warcraft movie pushed aside - Report

The World of Warcraft franchise has been a hot-ticket item for news this week. On Monday Blizzard Entertainment nailed down a December release date for the game’s third expansion, Cataclysm. And yesterday the publisher announced that the World of Warcraft subscriber base has climbed to a new high of 12 million. Now, franchise fans are getting some not so great news.

According to a Deadline report, the film set in the Warcraft universe won’t be released any time soon. When confirmed director Sam Raimi dropped out of his directorial position on Spider-Man 4, many expected that would free up time for him to work on the Warcraft film. However, according to the report, that’s not the case, and the director is instead working on Disney’s Wizard of Oz reboot.

Announced at the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo, the Warcraft project remains largely under wraps. Chief details known about the project include Raimi’s involvement and that Legendary Pictures, the production company behind The Dark Knight and the in-development Gears of War film, landed the project. Warner Bros. is slated to distribute.

The most recent mention of the flick came Raimi mouth in June. He said the film was moving forward, but its script still needed attention.

"We're still working on the story," Raimi said in June. "We have a 40-page document that needs a lot more work…we're finding the characters and through the characters we're finding the story…we're trying to create realistic characters that can live in the world of Warcraft, as though you were in the game itself."

In October 2009, Raimi revealed that Saving Private Ryan and The Patriot screenwriter Robert Rodat was on board with the project. The Internet Movie Database is listing the film as arriving in 2012, but no official date has been released by Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures, the companies distributing and producing the film.

Raimi is the director of the multibillion-dollar-grossing Spider-Man films and the horror cult classics Evil Dead and Army of Darkness. His most recent effort was the recent Drag Me to Hell, a horror thriller that won critical acclaim despite a PG-13 rating and so-so box-office returns. The Warcraft film will be produced by Atlas Entertainment's Charles "Chuck" Roven, Legendary Pictures' Thomas Tull, and Raimi producing partner Joshua Donen. Blizzard Entertainment's senior vice president of creative development Chris Metzen will coproduce.

Sam Raimi to Direct "WOW" Movie

courtesy of wow.com

Ain't It Cool News has uncovered one helluva juicy tidbit; one that has more or less came out of nowhere.

Sam Raimi is set to direct the World of Warcraft movie.

This news is coming out right before the San Diego ComicCon, which begins this week. According to Ain't It Cool News, the story should be hitting the trades later this week or next (Trades are daily papers in Hollywood about the latest goings on, more business than gossip news).

Raimi is best known for directing all the recent Spiderman works and cult horror films. This likely means that a movie announcement is not far off – perhaps BlizzCon?

Spider-man Venom Spinoff in the Works

Courtesy of Scifiwire.com
by Jeff Otto

Sony is officially moving forward with its Spider-Man spinoff movie focusing on Venom and has hired Zombieland writing team Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese to pen the script, the writers told a group of reporters.

"We had a really great relationship with Sony on [Zombieland], and so that was a nice in for us there," Reese said in a group interview. "It gave us a leg up."

The duo is already working on the script, but they are sworn to secrecy on the details. "We're under strict orders on Venom," Wernick said. "We can't talk about it. It's just super secret."

Unlike Spider-Man director Sam Raimi, who has admitted that he wasn't a Venom fan before directing Spider-Man 3, Wernick and Reese said they are big fans of the comic character and have recently been doing their research to ensure that they do justice to him. "We read [Venom] growing up, but we were not experts," Reese said. "We certainly know the mythology of Venom, but went back and learned more when it became clear that we could actually get this job."

Ultimately, the writing team has fan interest at heart, they said. Even as they are just getting started on the script, they admit fan scrutiny is on their minds. "Absolutely, I'm terrified," Reese said with a nervous laugh. "It's source material that everybody knows and everybody's familiar with and everybody loves. There's a burden on you to meet the expectations of people. A lot of people are curious about Venom."

The bottom line... thank god Sony gave the controls to someone other than Sam Raimi. He has on many occasions publicly stated he was not a fan of Venom and did not understand the Spider-man fan's admiration for the character. Explains why Spider-man 3 sucked so bad. Hope these guys do a good job with the Venom spinoff.

Sam Raimi gets Control of Spider-Man 4

Sam Raimi will be featured in an upcoming interview in Empire magazine's May issue. In the interview he openly talked about some of the problems with Spider-Man 3 and confirmed some rumors we all heard about 2 summers ago when the movie was released.

“They really gave me a tremendous amount of control on the first two films, actually. But then there were different opinions on the third film and I didn’t really have creative control, so to speak.”

What he is referring to, of course, is that when Spider-Man 3 was in Pre-production, Marvel told Sam Raimi that he had to include Venom in the 3rd Spider-Man film despite Sam rumored to say he did not wish to. Sam Raimi is more of a fan of the 70's Spider-Man villians and even today states he does not quite "understand" Venom.

“I don’t even want to comment on Venom, because I know he’s a great character and all the fans love him. I never want to say anything bad about a much-beloved character because usually it turns out that I’m the one that doesn’t understand what makes it great.”

I remember hearing the rumors of Spider-Man 3 before they came out and I was thinking, "if they don't put Venom in the 3rd movie I will be pissed!" Well, maybe we should watch what we wish for, because Venom was in the 3rd movie and the 3rd movie ended up being the worst one yet. You can tell that Sam Raimi's heart wasn't in the character and it shows in the movie. Too many villians and not enough character development. It was a major disappointment.

The bottom line... I'm looking forward to Spider-Man 4. He'll do a great job. As for Spider-Man 3 (despite being a big fan of Sam Raimi's work) maybe they just should have gone with another director. I mean, Venom is repeatedly considered one of the greatest villians in the history of comics. Therefore, us Spidey fans needed to see Venom. But, Switch (Belinda McClory) in the Matrix says it best, "Not like this... Not like this".