Thomas Tull On The Challenges Of Making A Good Movie Out Of 'World Of Warcraft'

Over the weekend I was in San Francisco doing interviews at the junket for Pacific Rim. At the roundtable interviews we were graced with the presence of Legendary Pictures head Thomas Tull, and he was asked if the World of Warcraft movie was going to begin production in early 2014 as producer Charles Roven told us last month, and explained their plan to finally make a video game movie that doesnt suck.

Tull says that the reason most video game movies have not been good so far is all in the approach and the motivations:

"A lot of times what has happened in the past is, studios have said, 'How many people play that game? Okay, thean that means they'll probably all go out and buy tickets.' That is an incredibly poor way to make a movie."

So "How do you make a video game movie that doesn't suck?", Tull says "You start with that exact question!" Tull thinks the key may be to base the film off the world of the game, and not the game itself:

So for us, it's that we don't know how to make a movie out of Warcraft, the video game. It's the incredible story, the war, and these races, and everything these guys at Blizzard have come up with. They have 100 books, and just this incredibly rich world that they've created.

And it helps that they found someone with a vision that excited them:

And so having Duncan Jones realize that for us was exciting. We've taken our time [developing this property], because we absolutely don't want to screw it up. And I think we're getting close to a place where we're ready to go. And when the script is finished, and when we feel like, 'Forget whether or not there's a built-in audience. Does this stand on its own, and is it great?' Then we'll start filming. We're not quite there yet, but we're under suspicion of going there. And Duncan is one of those directors that you just, 'This guy gets it.'

So while it doesnt seem like Tull is ready to commit to the first quarter of 2014 date that Roven gave us earlier, he does think it will happen by 2016.

The next two years are going to be pretty exciting, I think.