While there were no casting announcements at the BlizzCon 2013 panel for the Warcraft movie from Universal Pictures. There were quite a bit of story elements revealed about the upcoming video game adaptation which will be directed by Duncan Jones. The script for the film was written by Charles Leavitt (Blood Diamond, Seventh Son). Attending the panel were Jones (director), Chris Metzen (Blizzard Senior VP of Story and Franchise Development @ Blizzard), Rob Pardo (Chief Creative Officer @ Blizzard), Bill Westenoffer (SFX supervisor) and Nick Carpenter (VP of Cinematics @ Blizzard).
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Firstly and most importantly, the movie is "Humans vs Orcs". Although it's implied that other races of the Alliance and Horde will feature as well. But the conflict between humans and orcs will be at the center of the film. Specifically, it's Lothor vs Durotan, with both leaders believing they're acting in the best interest for their people.
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Secondly, and what's most promising, is that director Duncan Jones is a longtime Warcraft fan. Having started out on Ultima Online, he's played a lot of WoW games along with many of the key members of the cast.
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Hence, when Duncan boarded the project, the script was very Alliance heavy so one of the first things he set out to do was strike up a balance between Alliance AND Horde.
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The film is described as Avatar meet Games of Thrones.
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Concept art for Draenor, Dalaran, Ironforge and Stormwind was shown so expect to travel to those locales in the film.
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The production team is trying to build as many physical sets as possible and overly rely on vfx. The Lions Pride Inn was specifically named as being a location that will be physically built as a set.
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They style of the film is described as a war movie, with Gladiator being used as an example.
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There was a lot of talk about the level of detail the film is seeking to achieve like how to draw swords since there are no scabbards in World of Warcraft. The humans will wield very big swords. There have been serious discussions about the type of bark on trees in Elwynn Forest [so there's serious world building discussion going on]. The vfx team that worked on the Hulk in the Avengers will be working on Warcraft. Wei Wang (Blizzard) has also helped out a lot with creature design.
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They have "lots of cast" picked out but again, there were no announcements.
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A questions about a trilogy was quickly shot down as they're just focusing on the first film at the moment and nothing else.
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If the film is successful, Metzen said maybe they'll do a tv show one day.
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The film will be PG-13.
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And while no casting rumors were confirmed or denied, it's been previously reported that Paula Patton (2 Guns), Colin Farrell (Seven Psychopaths) and Travis Fimmel (History Channel's Vikings) have signed up for lead roles. Also rumored to be up for parts in the film were Anton Yelchin (Star Trek Into Darkness) and Anson Mount (Hell on Wheels). Filming begins in January though so expect official casting announcements to come soon. The film is currently slated for release on December 18t,2015 - the same day as Star Wars: Episode VII. Expect that date to change.
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