I would love it if they did this! But there are a few problems that prevent them from doing so.

I can't find out where I read this to cite it so it could be something I magically made up one day but from what I remember it took the animation team at Blizzard an upwards of a year to create the short cinematic that is the intro to Cata. And that is without a story line or any type of real lip syncing with a large cast of voice actors.

If you remember, this was one of the requests fans of Square made regarding the Final Fantasy series which was hugely popular at the time. Square actually did take the plunge with Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in 2001 and even though the brand was popular, the movie bombed at the box office(which wasn't even that bad of a movie IMO).

Not only that but the resources needed to pull the movie off were astronomical. It took over four years of development time and nearly 1,000 computers to render the entire movie. Now I know that processing power has increased exponentially since then but so has the level of detail we would come to expect from a Blizzard cinematic.

Now lets look at a company like Pixar who's movies, while extremely impressive, do not have the amount of detail we would expect from Blizzard. The movie Up took five years to create from writing to release. This is also taking into account the fact that Pixar already has the resources in place to start an animated movie like this. Blizzard would be starting from complete scratch to create an animated movie for Warcraft.

So we are looking at a six year turnaround time with Blizzard having to create an entirely new movie studio that would go to waste if the movie is not a commercial success. A filmed movie from writing to theatrical release takes on average 18 months.

So while I, and many others I am sure, would absolutely LOVE to see this done, I don't think it is in Blizzard's interest to devote so many resources to a project that may or may not be a success.

All I have to say is after the success of Avatar it should be much easier to promote a CGI movie than ever before. The only way in my opinion to make this film work is via CGI. The tools are there, the render farms are there, and the talent is there.

they need to make the characters and story be the main feature not special effects. what did special effects do for the star wars prequels?

@ersatzplanet

avatar doesnt have legs to stand on just from the special effects. it used a tried and tested plot. Pocahontas? people will go see a movie for badass state of the art special effects but they wont sit through it a second time if the story sucks.

@Talutha
It's not really accurate to compare the production times for a movie like FF:Spirits WIthin, which was made with significantly older technology than the CG movies today.

I'm not sold on the idea of making a WoW CG movie in the flavour of the game trailers. I have yet to see a movie that followed this trail and not avoid the uncanny valley problems. Films like FF and Beowulf really drive this point home for me. CG movies succeed when they don't try to recreate the living actor experience, and instead focus on using the abilities of CG to give memorable characters more depth. This is why the Pixar movies succeed, although I don't see the Pixar formula fitting in with something like WoW.

As one of the other commenters suggested, going the LoTR route is probably the best strategy, if executed well.

CGI can be awesome, Avatar and Advent Children are proof of that.

Right now, the wow movie looks like its gonna fail just like the last airbender failed.

Spirits Within was technically a marvel. It's storyline sucked.

It's plot was designed for Japanese audiences only, and it limited it's widespread appeal. As someone who is interested in Japanese culture, I sat there thru parts of it going "Huh?". It's story made very little sense unless you were very familiar with the theme behind it.

It's like a Japanese RPG. It may have one hell of a quirky storyline, have fans, and be a niche title, and that's great for a video game. A movie costing over $200 million, and distributing thru the world, not so much. It failed terribly at the box office.

The average movie goer, who might have gone simply because of the hype surrounding it, and the fact that it was the first photorealistic full CGI movie, would have come out thinking "What the hell was that?". It starts off like you have missed a movie before it. You feel lost in the beginning, and it doesn't do anything else to help that later on. So, movie failure was inevitable.

It also bankrupt Square. If it weren't for Sony coming in and saving them, Square would have closed up. They spent tons on it, and the return wasn't even half, or hell even a third, I think.

@Xaospro

I think you're wrong.

Why was LotR such a massive hit (it was, just look at the revenue) and why will a WoW movie suceed??

* It was built on a "geek fandom"; Tolkien (God rest him) is almost equal to World of Warcraft. Everyone has heard of WoW, if not played it. Almost everyone know some scrap of lore - or "game mechanic". WoW is, in fact, the MMO-age equivalent of Lord of the Rings. Even my parents have heard about WoW (before I told them).

Peter Jackson made a right decision in going a completely novel way than Ralph Baksi had done. Baksi made a cartoon movie, it's great if you're stoned or drunk or don't have anything else to visualise your own image of Middle Earth with, but ... it's a crap movie. You're not supposed to Lol at Epic Movies (unless they're Evil Dead).

I even have high hopes for "the Hobbit". :)

* CGI is awesome, but only in its own context; in a game CGI is appropriate, main characters, environment, NPC's, comic sidekicks, extras - all that. In a movie, CGI is a helpful tool for both story and actors - but mostly story. It is a minority of the audience who relish the idea of a 120+ minutes of computerized emotions. You have to take in to accountall those who don't play WoW, who don't play computer - or consol games, who maybe even don't own a computer (but own a DVD player and will get sucked in by the promotion). Simply put: You can't make a Major Motion Picture for a small number of gamers; Uwe Boll, man ... Uwe Boll. He's tried it once, twice, over and over again.

It's the human emotion on the silver screen that makes a motion picture worthwhile. The pores, the tears, the facial ticks - all th stuff we as humans do naturally without thinking, but tkaes hurs and hours of work for a CGI "actor". Check out Heavy Rain, for instance; very human yes, but they move as robots.

Combine CGI with trained proffesional human actors and - well, Win. Not wipe. Skip the humanity and you Will Wipe.

Actually, that last one should be a golden rule for both PuGs and raids ;)

If you write a good story, and have good actors , it will be good. See 'The Road' for a good example of that. You can cram as much CGI in as you wish but that won't make the movie any good. See any Transformer movies for evidence of that.

If Blizzard sticks the the age-old truth...write a story with heart and plot...then they can't go wrong. The tropuble is, with this movie more than others, they will play to a certain age group of males who want titties and explosions, with the occassional fart joke. If they cater to THAT group, then forget it.It'll be as bad and predictable as Avatar was.

Better news is that the The Hobbit is being filmed in NZ and is being directed by Peter Jackson. That's the one film that'll rule them all, I hope.