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Stars: Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell, Ben Schnetzer, Robert Kazinsky, Clancy Brown, Daniel Wu, Ruth Negga, Anna Galvin, Callum Rennie | Written by Duncan Jones, Charles Leavitt | Directed by Duncan Jones

The failure of video game films has been well documented. Although video games have been a major part of pop culture for decades we have yet to see a fully successful crossover hit the big screen. On paper Warcraft seems like the movie that could do it mainly due to the man behind the camera Duncan Jones. With Jones Warcraft has both a talented filmmaker and someone who is well familiar with the source property. This will not be another Super Mario Bros that barely resembles the video game it is depicting. Unfortunately, Warcraft is vapid, dull, and empty – but not completely void of merit. The search for a great video game movie continues.

Duncan Jones is having a very strange year. There can’t be any easy way to lose your father, but when your father is an icon known the world over and his death is a cultural moment that creates worldwide shock waves, I can only imagine the way it magnifies your pain. Add to that a global press tour in which you have to sell the movie that you’ve just spent three years making, during which you’re going to be asked thousands of wildly insensitive if well-meaning questions about your father, and I can’t imagine the strength it took Duncan to make it through without collapsing. I’ve known him casually for several years now, but I made sure that when I sat down with him to discuss Warcraft, his new film based on the massively-popular Blizzard game, I kept the conversation firmly on the film and nothing else. “Do your kids play World of Warcraft?” Duncan asked as I settled into my chair. Universal transformed one full soundstage into a sort of catch-all set from the film, full of props and costuming. It’s always impressive to see just how much of this stuff they have to create for a movie. I am unfamiliar with the property, though, so I was interested in the conversation, not the set dressing. “No. I think it's a little advanced for them still. My oldest is 10, and he's starting to ask about games like this, like strategy games. He still prefers pure action. The little one’s got the mind for it, though.” He laughed, and I finished setting up my recorder. “Okay. First of all, having just seen it last night, I'm still not sure what I saw. There's so much work that Ilm does that is really next level for them and for digital performance in general. Walk me through an average day on Warcraft for you.” He considered the question for a moment. “Well, you know, we made a decision early on that with the anatomy of our Orc characters, we felt like the best way to pull that off was to do it with motion capture. One of our concept artists is this amazing guy called Wei Wang who was actually a fan of Warcraft. He had done such amazing artwork and he submitted it to Blizzard, and they hired him to come onboard for them. He was the one who realized the sort of true dimensions of an Orc and how to realize them in a sort of live action environment. They're almost like a Humunculous. They have a head the same size as a human being, but then their shoulders get bigger, their arms get bigger than that, and they have massive hands. We were never really going to be able to pull that off with prosthetics or costumes or anything like that, so we went the motion capture route. Knowing that we were going to do that, we wanted to surround them with as much live-action real stuff as possible. So Gavin Bouquet, our production designer, basically made just a vast number of huge beautiful live action sets where we would shoot all of our content with our Orcs and our humans. So when you say it looks spectacular, a lot of it comes down to Ilm, and also a lot of credit goes to the very practical, physical stuff that was made by Gavin Bouquet and his team, Mayes Rubeo who did the costuming and the wardrobe, and Weta, who gave us our weapons and built our armor.” I’ve had a growing problem with video game movies, and it boils down to the difference in the way we digest the two things: movies are, for all the involvement you feel with them, passive experiences. You watch them. You may feel personally invested, but you cannot control the outcome of the film. With video games, you are constantly in control, and depending on the scope of the game, you may have the ability to have a completely unique experience than anyone else who ever plays that same game. Those two things do not seem easily reconciled to me, and I asked how important it was to make the Orcs feel like they fit into the same world as the humans as a way of pulling the audience in and making them invest as deeply as you would hope people invest in a game. “My thinking was that it's going to be easier to get the audience to care and get engaged with the human characters. I want them to care about these Orc characters up front and not see it as a gimmick but really understand and root for these guys as much as they do for the humans.” I mentioned the film’s opening shot, a close-up of Durotan (Toby Kebbell’s Orc character), and the insane amount of detail that went into making it look alive. Duncan said, “Hanging on that shot as long as we did was really a start of that job of getting the audience to empathize with a father, a husband, his baby that's on the way, and his people who are really in this critical situation where they need to find a new home.” I asked him if it was important to hire a lead actor who had some experience with this sort of motion-capture performance work. Toby Kebbell did such a great job playing Koba in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes that I’m not surprised to see him getting more of this kind of work. Andy Serkis seems positively evangelical about getting other people involved in this type of performance work, and Terry Notary has made a new career for himself training other people to do this work. “It was really important that if we were going to be hiring actors who had never done it before, we really had some sort of a trunk to help support the tree. Toby and Terry [Notary, who plays Peon, one of the Orcs] were really the guys who had the experience and were able to encourage the others. Toby in particular has this amazing acting ability beyond the motion capture. I don't know if you ever saw the Black Mirror episode that he did. He's a fantastic actor.” I agreed. “He seems to be good at figuring out places for the subtle stuff that punctuates performance, the things that read through what he does.” “That’s kind of a newer thing,” Duncan pointed out, “because the development of the facial capture in particular is a next step in the technology. Things have progressed thanks to what Jeff White [visual effects supervisor] at Ilm had developed for our movie. They’ve gotten so much better at getting the new assets and allowing Toby to just be as subtle as he wanted to and have the confidence that all of that would be picked up without animators having to physically manhandle his model to do it.” Yes, this conversation’s going to get nerdy, but how do you avoid that in talking about the technical breakthroughs made to bring a film about Orc armies to life? I’ve been in love with this stuff my whole life, and I still remember the first magazines I bought to read about how they made Star Wars in 1977. I am constantly thrilled to see how these amazing artists push the tech forward, and how the tech serves to help them make their art. It’s a great back and forth, and I love watching it and reporting on it. “You also had Hal Hickel on as your animation supervisor,” I said. “I love him because he’s also a director, and it seems like he approaches this work as a filmmaker.” “I absolutely love Hal,” Duncan said, lighting up at the mention of each of these collaborators. “I love Jeff and Hal and Jason [Smith, visual effects supervisor] and all of that team. We had a lot of fun working out how… you know going in that there were moments in the film where the physical movements that you want from an actor are never really gonna do justice to what an Orc is capable of. Or what an Orc on Orc mano a mano fight might be like, so Hal absolutely added a whole level of hyperreality to those movements. He’s amazing because he was also able to deliver on the subtleties as well, where maybe something wasn't quite what we needed it to be, but we knew what we wanted, and he managed to get us there.” One of the film’s boldest choices is how it starts on a close-up of Durotan, and then we spend 10 minutes with only CGI characters, finally introducing some of the live-action cast after that, and even then, never really offering the audience a movie star or something overly familiar to latch onto. It’s a pretty ballsy way to kick things off. "That’s a scary choice for a studio,” I said. “Was Blizzard considered the movie star here? Was that the star above the title that allowed you to cast the people that you wanted, regardless of their box-office power?” He nodded as he replied. “It certainly gave us confidence and maybe a little bit of a safety net that allowed us to go after the people we thought were the right actors for the parts. I was a fan of Travis Fimmel from Vikings. I was definitely a fan of Paula Patton, and I felt like if we were gonna do the character of Garona in live-action, there was a very, very short list of people who I felt comfortable could make it work. I'd seen Paula Patton in Mission Impossible, and I thought that quality in that role, that's the right person for this role.” I laughed, because I feel exactly the same way about Patton. “When she kicks her shoes off to go chase the other spy, you know right away that other spy is going to get her ass beat.” Duncan started laughing as well. “That’s what makes her great in something like this, that confident physicality. That’s a big choice because her character is the only Orc created as a live-action character.” “Beyond that,” he continued, “I would say in Mission: Impossible, she did a certain thing ... In this role, what she was being asked to do on an acting level was much wider. I think she really delivered, and I truly believe this is the best Paula Patton has ever been in a movie.” I love that a director is that big a cheerleader for one of his actors. “You gave her those teeth. Those things are an obstacle. Right away, they change her face and her jaw dramatically.” “We did. Although we didn’t paint her green, which is one of the things you might be surprised by.” “Wait… really? Did you rotoscope her?” “We had to roto her for every shot in the movie, and we just color shifted her entirely. The reason we did that is because we had seen what Guardians of the Galaxy had done with their green lady character, and we felt like it looked like someone had just been painted green. Our feeling was, you know, skin doesn't look like that. Skin has different colors all over it. The way to do that is to keep the skin as it is and shift it.” “So, just piecing all of this together and making sure that you had everything that you needed as a filmmaker, was there ever a moment where it just felt like this crazy math problem that you're constantly writing?” He laughed again. “Yeah, 5D chess. Absolutely. Between the technical challenges and the scale of it and working with such a large cast who were all separated into separate camps between the Orcs and the humans, it was a constant game of 5D chess, all trying to make sure that no matter what technical challenges will be thrown at me or what improvisations I worked on with the actors, we always remained focused on ‘Okay, what is the story we're trying to tell? Who are the heroes? Who are the leads? How are we trying to drive the story forward ad bring these characters all together at the right moments?’” One of the film’s big choices is to tell a story that is definitely not over as the closing credits roll, an introduction to the characters and the stakes as things move into place. “In the last few minutes of the film, you snap everybody into a very different role than they've had before,” I pointed out. “So the next time out its gonna be radically different, they're gonna have radically different relationships, and you've definitely left us with a lot of questions at the end of this one. Was there ever a push to make it more closed?” “No,” said Duncan, “there was never a push to do that. I think the challenge was to make sure that even though we leave that opportunity to move on to a fuller trilogy of a story, that this felt like there was a story that had been told in this film. That's a challenge for any film. Normally, the biggest challenge is for the middle films. What we tried to do was set up how the Orcs find themselves in a place. They can't stay in their world anymore, so they've invaded this world. Durotan has led his people to a new world and is trying to find a home for his Orcs. At the end of this movie, they don't have their home yet, but we know that they're looking for it. And I think if we ever get the chance to make more of them, I would hope by the end of the trilogy, the Orcs would have their new home.” “So you seem to have cast Ben Foster with every intention of asking him to go full Ben Foster in the role…” “That's why you cast Ben Foster,” he said, laughing again. “If you cast the right actors for the right roles and they're into it and they're willing to go for it, you get magic.” Seeing my reaction to the pun, Duncan burst into long, loud laughter. “Wow, I didn't even attempt that.” It was impossible not to collapse into laughter as well, seeing how entertained he was. “Thank you for coming with me on that pun.” I mentioned how Foster reminds me of the work that Mark Hamill did in the Star Wars films. He always seemed to believe in the world and the details of the world with such ferocity that it made it real for me as a viewer. He felt comfortable, like he really lived in the world and didn’t just pick up these props for the first time in his life. “That’s the real trick in these films,” I said. “It’s beyond a trick,” Duncan replied. “Ben Foster was challenging me constantly when we were in pre-production to explain to him how magic worked. What is the vocabulary that he's speaking? What do these words mean? What are the movements that he should be doing in order to cast spells? He was grilling me, and we basically worked out how to cast the spells that he casts throughout the movie and how they relate to each other. When Ben Foster was casting magic and Ben Schnetzer was watching him in this kind of apprentice relationship, Ben Foster knew his stuff. He could actually teach Ben Schnetzer how to do things, and it wasn't just, ‘I’m gonna wave my arms and special effects will put something there.’” “This speaks to the faithfulness to the game that you’ve maintained,” I said, “and I’ll be honest… that’s not something I can speak to. I come to this fresh. I talked to one gamer afterwards who was really surprised by how much it felt like Warcraft. She felt like, ‘Yep, that's the world. It’s not the exact moment I play, but it’s the world, and it’s right.’ How did you strike the balance? Because I love that you don't have any sort of opening crawl. You don't bury us under exposition in the beginning. It’s only seeded as we go and you sort of feed it to us little bits at a time.” “If you're a little bit lost for the first 10 or 15 minutes, I’m okay with that. As long as by the end of the movie, you feel like you understood what's just happened.” “Do you have a favorite creature or creation for the film, something that when you saw it fully-executed felt like you nailed it?” “Durotan and his wife Draka. In particular, Draka, and it’s more than just the creature onscreen. We found this amazing performer and actress by the name of Anna Galvin who plays Draka. She's an Australian, she lives up in Vancouver, and she had really not done that much. She had done one or two bits in motion-capture for a computer game before, but she hadn't really done it for a full project. She was all-in to play this character Draka. A lot of us who saw her performance were like, ‘Wow, you went for it in a way where we all feel like we need to raise our game.’ She was phenomenal. And that led to a final character that was even wilder because of her.” I mentioned that there’s a moment near the end where Anduin’s big griffin goes to town on some Orcs that just made me belly-laugh. “Yeah,” he agreed, laughing as well, “there’s some good stuff in there.” I told him about my own experience as a motion-capture performer when we made a pilot for Comedy Central for a possible Ain’t It Cool News TV show. I was supposed to play Moriarty each week as an animated character to look just like the Cartuna drawings that were part of the site’s identity, and I’d interact in real time with Harry, who was shot on a live-action stage next-door to where my performance was being captured. It was a crazy complicated way of trying to share movie news and rumors, but fun to try to pull off. The guys who were in charge of the performance capture were the same team who had just finished the Agent Smith fight in The Matrix Reloaded, and they had a ton of stories about how they were pushing things forward, about what the cutting edge really was at that particular moment. Part of the thing that drove them crazy on our show was trying to map the seven-foot spindly thin body of Moriarty onto the six-foot pear-shaped fanboy physique of me. I asked Duncan how they approached trying to map a human physiology to that of a giant oddly-proportioned Orc and how far things have evolved in the 14 years between my pilot and this film. “The only thing that we added was at the actors' request if they wanted to wear tusks. It just gave them a slightly different way of talking when they're performing. Some of the actors wanted to do it, some of them chose not to, but that was really it. What we did have on set that was very useful was live playback of a very simplified version of the asset. That becomes really important for framing. Orcs range from seven and a half to nine feet tall and they are three to four feet wide. They're just incredibly wide and obviously that affects how you frame things. In order for us to be able to frame a shot, we needed to be able to get a sense of just how much space they’d occupy. I mean, Rob Kazinsky is a pretty big guy, but he ain't that big. We needed to know how much space he would be taking.” I told him that I’m fond of Kazinsky because, like Vin Diesel, he’s a total giddy nerd on the inside who just happens to look like a comic book superhero on the outside. I know Kazinsky’s a gamer, and I asked Duncan if there was a learning curve where Rob was able to slip into the skin of the Orc more and more as he worked with it and got to live out his fanboy fantasies. “Well, like you said, he was in there right from the start. He walked in knowing who Orgrim was, what the lore was, where that character was going to end up. I think he wanted to do justice to a character that he really knew well in the same way any Marvel fan, if they had the chance to be in a Marvel film, would. He was right there from the start, but I think the confidence of doing the motion-capture work came about thanks to working with Terry in what we called Orc camp with Toby, where they just spent time coming up with and learning a vocabulary of movement for the Orcs. How to move like an Orc, how not to turn your head like this but actually turn from the shoulders to make sense of these giant neck muscles that they have. There's all sorts of things that you don't naturally think of until you realize that the anatomy of your character is way different from your own and you're gonna have to move to make that work.” “Does making a film this big change the way you approach the next film you make? Is there anything you take with you from this into Mute?" “I’ve wanted to make Mute for such a long time, and I'm fortunate because it looks like now I'm gonna have the opportunity to do it with Paul Rudd and Alexander Skarsgard and a number of other people who haven't been announced yet. It’s gonna be a palate cleanser. It’s on a much much lower budget, and it’s back to science fiction, but a very different kind of science fiction. It’s gonna be great to take that break from this kind of filmmaking to go back to that one, and hopefully if this goes down well, I'll get the chance to come back and do another one of these. I hope you enjoyed it.” How about it? Now that Warcraft is open around the world, I’m curious to see how you guys are reacting to it. Even after writing and posting my review, I certainly haven’t stopped thinking about it, and the boys have been asking, so I’ll most likely end up taking them to see it. Are you guys open to another one? Did you find yourself drawn into this world or distanced from it? And if you’re a super-fan of the games, do you think this is something that was intended for you instead of a broader audience? Warcraft is in theaters now.

So, we’re almost at the halfway point for movie year 2016. Since we’re a few weeks into the Summer flick season, the studios are trying to hedge their bets (and investments) by delivering entertainment with a recognizable name. There’s been a glut of sequels (two this very weekend), and two franchise films based on comic book characters (Cap’s latest is the year’s biggest hit). Hmmm, what other properties are ripe for cinematic exploitation? Ah yes, games! Just a few weeks ago Angry Birds, an animated romp based on an “app”, grabbed the number one box office slot from the shield-slinger! And this weekend sees a live action/CGI-animated hybrid based on an immensely popular on-line video game that began 22 years ago. Now, the studios have been trying to lure game players into the multiplex for years, well over twenty since those Super Mario Brothers made the...

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With its vast tapestry of knights, orcs, and mages, the World of Warcraft franchise was always going to be a tricky one to adapt. As fans of the Mmorpg (I can’t claim to be one of them, though I did some research before heading into the pic) know well, there’s so much packed into the series’ lore that it inarguably lends itself better to encyclopedias than films.

And so director Duncan Jones, who makes a lot of very smart choices behind the camera of Warcraft, makes one of his wisest in choosing to tell an origin story for this world, working from the stories of the original strategy game that predated any online video-game take. In doing so, he’s able to focus the movie exponentially, making heroes and villains out of the individuals involved in World of Warcraft‘s catalyzing moment...

The Peaceful realm of Azedroth stands on the brink of war as its civilization faces a fearsome race of invaders: Orc warriors fleeing their dying home to colonize another. As a portal opens to connect the two worlds, one army faces destruction and the other faces extinction. From opposing sides, two heroes as set on a collision course that will decide the fate of their family, their people and their home. 

Latino Review got an exclusive interview with director Duncan Jones where we spoke to him about his upcoming film Warcraft, being a fan of the game, getting the story right, working with half digital and half life action, the future of the franchise and his next project Mute and if he has plans on making a sequel to Source Code. 

It's safe to assume that you were a big fan of the video game since you directed this film.

Today I turned 46 years old. I’m not sure if that’s too old for me to play video games. I certainly hope not, since I find them relaxing in a way that is valuable to me. Then again, I’m not sure who gets to decide if they are or aren’t appropriate, since I’m part of the first generation to be able to grow up playing games. I was there for Pong and Space Invaders and Asteroids and Pac-Man, and I was there for the first consoles at home. I’ve been a fan as long as there have been video games, and I remain a devoted fan of gaming in general even if I don’t always love the culture around it. What I find strange is how completely and utterly I have somehow avoided World Of Warcraft. Unlike films, where I find that I’m open to pretty much anything,...

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A great videogame adaptation at last, or another grind? Here’s our review of Duncan Jones’ action fantasy, Warcraft...

Gryphons. Dark magic. Orcs swinging colossal hammers that make Thor’s Mjolnir look like one of those little things your grandmother uses to smash up toffee. Based on the Blizzard videogames of the same name, Warcraft marks a considerable change of pace for Duncan Jones, who previously brought us the deliciously poignant Moon and the taut sci-fi thriller, Source Code.

If there’s a connecting thread between Warcraft and Jones’ earlier movies, it’s in its effervescent tone and clear affection for genre movies of the 60s, 70s and 80s. Where Moon lovingly referenced Silent Running or Outland, Warcraft appears to take its cue not from the blood-and-thunder fantasy of the trendy Game Of Thrones, but old-school fare like Beastmaster, Legend and the movies of Ray Harryhausen.

Set...

Warcraft director Duncan Jones has unveiled the character poster for Draka, wife of Durotan. This Orc warrior has been glimpsed briefly in the trailers but this is our first proper look at her. Draka is played via mo-cap by Smallville actress Anna Galvin. Legendary’s Warcraft is a 3D epic adventure of world-colliding conflict based upon Blizzard Entertainment’s globally-renowned universe. Directed by Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code) and written by Charles Leavitt and Duncan Jones, the film is a Legendary Pictures, Blizzard Entertainment and Atlas Entertainment production. The producers are Charles Roven, Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni, Alex Gartner and Stuart Fenegan. Jillian Share, Brent O’Connor, Michael Morhaime and Paul Sams serve as executive producers. Rob Pardo, Chris Metzen, Nick Carpenter and Rebecca Steel Roven co-produce. Warcraft will be released by Universal Pictures. Fighting for The Alliance, Warcraft features Dominic Cooper as King Llane Wrynn, Travis Fimmel as Anduin Lothar,...

On Sunday during the Afc National Championship game between the New England Patriots and the Denver Broncos, Legendary Pictures debuted a new TV spot for Warcraft.

Check it out below.

Legendary’s Warcraft is a 3D epic adventure of world-colliding conflict based upon Blizzard Entertainment’s globally-renowned universe.

The peaceful realm of Azeroth stands on the brink of war as its civilization faces a fearsome race of invaders: Orc warriors fleeing their dying home to colonize another. As a portal opens to connect the two worlds, one army faces destruction and the other faces extinction. From opposing sides, two heroes are set on a collision course that will decide the fate of their family, their people and their home.

So begins a spectacular saga of power and sacrifice in which war has many faces, and everyone fights for something.

Directed by Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code), the film stars Travis Fimmel,...

Recently, Legendary Pictures and Universal Pictures delivered the very first movie trailer (below) for their upcoming action/fantasy movie, "Warcraft: The Beginning " and it gives us new looks at some very intense and dramatic footage that features hardcore battle scenes that results from the continuous tension between the humans and beasts. Check it out,below. The film stars: Ben Foster, Clancy Brown, Daniel Wu, Dominic Cooper, Paula Patton, Toby Kebbell, Travis Fimmel, Ben Schnetzer, Ruth Negga, Robert Kazinsky and Anna Galvin. The official synopsis for the movie, reads like this: "Azeroth stands on the brink of war as its civilization, led by the humans, faces a fearsome race of invaders: orc warriors fleeing their dying world of Draenor to find their place in another. As a portal known as the Dark Portal opens to connect the two worlds, the humans face destruction while the orcs face extinction. Anduin Lothar...

Hordes. Alliances. Everyone shows up in the first trailer for the highly anticipated Warcraft, an epic adventure of world-colliding conflict based on Blizzard Entertainment’s global phenomenon.

The peaceful realm of Azeroth stands on the brink of war as its civilization faces a fearsome race of invaders: Orc warriors fleeing their dying home to colonize another. As a portal opens to connect the two worlds, one army faces destruction and the other faces extinction. From opposing sides, two heroes are set on a collision course that will decide the fate of their family, their people and their home.

So begins a spectacular saga of power and sacrifice in which war has many faces, and everyone fights for something.

Directed by Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code), the film stars Travis Fimmel, Ben Foster, Paula Patton, Ben Schnetzer, Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga, Toby Kebbell, Robert Kazinsky, Clancy Brown, Anna Galvin, Daniel Wu.

A few weeks after the fantasy blockbuster, The Last Witch Hunter, bombed at the box office, director Duncan Jones is hoping fans of the massively popular multiplayer game, World of Warcraft, will support the game’s jump to the big screen — unlike the Vin Diesel vehicle.

The first trailer for Warcraft was released on Friday and offered a glimpse at next year’s massive fantasy epic that will star Travis Fimmel, Ben Foster, Paula Patton, Ben Schnetzer, Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga, Toby Kebbell, Robert Kazinsky, Clancy Brown, Anna Galvin, and Daniel Wu.

The official synopsis is as follows:

The peaceful realm of Azeroth stands on the brink of war as its civilization faces a fearsome race of invaders: orc warriors fleeing their dying home to colonize another. As a portal opens to connect the two worlds, one army faces destruction and the other faces extinction. From opposing sides, two heroes...

On a cold day in early 2014, HitFix Harpy was among those invited to check out the set of “Warcraft.” Now I’m finally able to share (some) of that information with you! As a former World of Warcraft addict that occasionally lapses with each new expansion, I was skeptical. After all, video game movies don’t have the best track record. But after spending a day with the cast and crew of “Warcraft,” I think if anyone can break the video game movie curse, it’s these guys. The “Warcraft” universe is vast, with over a decade’s worth of lore spanning both games and novels. Trying to condense that into a single film would be a fool’s errand so Duncan Jones and his collaborator’s had to pick a story. They settled on one surrounding the King Llane Wrynn of Azeroth, Lothar, and Medivh on the human side...

Plus, here are some stills from the new Warcraft trailer! The peaceful realm of Azeroth stands on the brink of war as its civilization faces a fearsome race of invaders: Orc warriors fleeing their dying home to colonize another. As a portal opens to connect the two worlds, one army faces destruction and the other faces extinction. From opposing sides, two heroes are set on a collision course that will decide the fate of their family, their people and their home. So begins a spectacular saga of power and sacrifice in which war has many faces, and everyone fights for something. Warcraft features: Director: Duncan Jones Travis Fimmel as Sir Anduin Lothar Paula Patton as Garona Halforcen Ben Foster as Magus Medivh Dominic Cooper as King Llane Wrynn Toby Kebbell as Durotan Ben Schnetzer as Khadgar Robert Kazinsky as Orgrim Doomhammer Daniel Wu as Gul'dan Ruth Negga as Lady Taria...

The wait is almost over. Fans of Warcraft got a first look at Duncan Jones’ Warcraft movie with a quick teaser of the trailer debuting in three days on November 6th.

From Legendary Pictures and Universal Pictures comes Warcraft, an epic adventure of world-colliding conflict based on Blizzard Entertainment’s global phenomenon.

The peaceful realm of Azeroth stands on the brink of war as its civilization faces a fearsome race of invaders: Orc warriors fleeing their dying home to colonize another. As a portal opens to connect the two worlds, one army faces destruction and the other faces extinction. From opposing sides, two heroes are set on a collision course that will decide the fate of their family, their people and their home.

So begins a spectacular saga of power and sacrifice in which war has many faces, and everyone fights for something.

Directed by Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code), the film stars Travis Fimmel,...

On Friday (Nov. 6) Universal will release the long-awaited first trailer for Warcraft, but in the meantime, check out this tasty morsel of a poster.

Director Duncan Jones tweeted out the trailer news.

Ooo! Well it’s official. Trailer out in 4 days! https://t.co/f6REUKAcBr pic.twitter.com/x2ME7TWAF1

— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) November 2, 2015

From Legendary Pictures and Universal Pictures comes Warcraft, an epic adventure of world-colliding conflict based on Blizzard Entertainment’s global phenomenon.

The peaceful realm of Azeroth stands on the brink of war as its civilization faces a fearsome race of invaders: Orc warriors fleeing their dying home to colonize another. As a portal opens to connect the two worlds, one army faces destruction and the other faces extinction. From opposing sides, two heroes are set on a collision course that will decide the fate of their family, their people and their home.

So begins...

Even the most effective film adaptations of video games have been average at best so far, which means any filmmaker tackling one is certainly taking a risk. One such person out to change the perception regarding the genre is filmmaker Duncan Jones ("Source Code," "Moon") with his next project "Warcraft".

Coming off a successful promotion of the film at this year's San Diego Comic Con, Jones says he thinks he understands why others have failed in this genre, how it could be fixed, and why "Warcraft" will avoid the issue. He tells io9:

"As soon as I saw David Fincher make a movie out of Facebook, I felt like anything is possible. The source of your material is not necessarily going to dictate whether you can make a good movie. It's finding an element of truth in it, or a thread which you can build a story around.

Now,...

On Saturday, Legendary Pictures’ brought director Duncan Jones’ Warcraft to Comic-Con 2015.

For those who didn’t have the chance to attend and see the preview footage that was screened in Hall H, prepare to fly high above the epic world of Azeroth in this official 360 video inspired by the Warcraft movie and developed by Industrial Light & Magic xLAB.

Look all around you as you fly over the city of Stormwind on the back of the mythic gryphon.

Visit legendary.com/Vr to find out more.

From Legendary Pictures and Universal Pictures comes Warcraft, an epic adventure of world-colliding conflict based on Blizzard Entertainment’s global phenomenon.

The peaceful realm of Azeroth stands on the brink of war as its civilization faces a fearsome race of invaders: Orc warriors fleeing their dying home to colonize another. As a portal opens to connect the two worlds, one army faces destruction and the other faces extinction.

Contributed by Michelle McCue and Melissa Howland

On Saturday Crimson Peak, Warcraft and Krampus were at Legendary Pictures’ Comic-Con panel in Hall H.

Krampus, a darkly festive tale of a yuletide ghoul, reveals an irreverently twisted side to the holiday.

When his dysfunctional family clashes over the holidays, young Max (Emjay Anthony) is disillusioned and turns his back on Christmas. Little does he know, this lack of festive spirit has unleashed the wrath of Krampus: a demonic force of ancient evil intent on punishing non-believers.

All hell breaks loose as beloved holiday icons take on a monstrous life of their own, laying siege to the fractured family’s home and forcing them to fight for each other if they hope to survive.

The horror-comedy also stars Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner, Allison Tolman, Conchata Ferrell, Stefania Lavie Owen and Krista Stadler.

Krampus and his mischievous underlings have been...

We’ve got your first look at Legendary’s Warcraft – the 3D epic adventure of world-colliding conflict based upon Blizzard Entertainment’s globally-renowned universe.

Directed by Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code) and written by Charles Leavitt and Duncan Jones, the film is a Legendary Pictures, Blizzard Entertainment and Atlas Entertainment production.

The cast includes Travis Fimmel, Ben Foster, Paula Patton, Ben Schnetzer, Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga, Toby Kebbell, Robert Kazinsky, Clancy Brown, Anna Galvin, and Daniel Wu.

Jones went on Twitter to share with fans the first photos of Orgrim from his upcoming film.

Hey mate! :). Looking handsome as ever! @RobertKazinsky pic.twitter.com/1IQ7CvrQOE

— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) May 18, 2015

The producers are Charles Roven, Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni, Alex Gartner and Stuart Fenegan. Jillian Share, Brent O’Connor, Michael Morhaime and Paul Sams serve as executive producers. Rob Pardo, Chris Metzen, Nick Carpenter and Rebecca Steel Roven co-produce.

Recently, ABC released the new,official synopsis/spoilers for their upcoming "Once Upon A Time" episode 18 of season 4. The episode is entitled, "Sympathy for the De Vil,” and it turns out that we're going to see very intense and dramatic stuff go down when Cruella kidnaps Henry, threatens his life, and more! In the new, 8th episode press release: The Devil You Know Is Better Than The De Vil You’LL Meet. Press release number 2: In fictional 1920s England, viewers will meet a young Cruella, whose oppressive mother uses her Dalmatians to terrorize her daughter. Cruella will be confined to her mother’s attic until a mysterious stranger arrives and empowers her to challenge her captor. In Storybrooke, Regina is going to gain leverage to keep Gold from interfering with her plan to rescue Robin, but her trip to New York is going to take the backseat when she...

Stars: Christian Slater, Vinnie Jones, Jake Croker, Emily Tennant, Aren Buchholz, Matthew Robert Kelly, Brittney Wilson, Jedidiah Goodacre, Jillian Fargey, Chris Shields, Anna Galvin, Sydney Waack, Ryan Grantham | Written by Matthew Robert Kelly | Directed by Kevin Carraway

Sometimes you see actors turn up in movies and you just know what to expect. I find though that to be fair to the film I look to be pleasantly surprised, and sometimes I even am…but this tends to be rare. Way of the Wicked stars Christian Slater and Vinnie Jones and for fans of bad movies I don’t really need to say much more than that do I?

When Robbie (Jake Croker) returns to the town where he was once implicated in the death of a classmate it’s not long before another student dies. Detective John Elliot (Vinnie Jones) begins to suspect Robbie as being to blame, especially when...

The Friday round of updates:

A new episode of Grimm, with Sasha Roiz, airs tonight at 9 pm. Here is the synopsis:

As Portland's homeless youth start to go missing, Nick uncovers a deadly black market supplying the Grimm world with human organs for all types of elixirs. As the investigation heightens, Nick and Juliette befriend a pair of homeless siblings, Hanson (guest star Daryl Sabara, "Spy Kids") and Gracie (guest star Hannah Marks, "Necessary Roughness"), whose friends have gone missing.Valerie Cruz from Alphas and The Dresden Files also guest stars.

Starting next week, NBC will be airing Grimm reruns on Thursdays at 10 until March, and The Firm is moving to Saturdays.

You can find a bunch of stills from Extracted on the film's Fb page.

Here is a sneak peek from Grimm:

Playback with Alessandra Torresani is finally available on demand. The film will also hit theatres on March 9. Synopsis and clip,...

A few quick updates.

To start with some frakking excellent news, Deadline writes that Paula Malcomson has landed a leading role in Showtime's new pilot, Ray Donovan:

A dark family drama with comedic undertones, the show centers on Ray (Schreiber), a professional “fixer” for La’s rich and famous, the go-to guy in Hollywood who deftly solves the highly confidential problems of the city’s most intriguing personalities but can’t quite escape the damage in his own troubled family. Malcomson will play Ray’s wife Abby, a Boston tough girl who is still finding it hard to assimilate into the fast lane of Hollywood.

Luke Camilleri makes an appearance in tonight's episode of Arctic Air, "Hijacked," which airs at 9 pm on CBC in Canada. Michael Hogan is also back. Hit the pic to see a gallery of stills from the episode.

Here is the synopsis for Jane Espenson's...

First, a reminder that the last two episodes of Prime Suspect air tonight at 9 pm on NBC.

And a bunch of cast news:

Esai Morales has been nominated for a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special for his work in We Have Your Husband. Big congrats!

And also congrats to the Gun Hill Road team on the nomination for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film (Limited Release). Still no DVD release date for Ghr.

Not sure if I mentioned it, but Eric Stoltz directed an episode of Californication last year. The episode now has a title and an air date: "Love Song," February 12. Spoiler TV has the synopsis.

Magda Apanowicz has a new credit on the IMDb. She will make an appearance in episode 1x06 of Holliston, the first original series from the FEARnet cable channel. The show is a horror sitcom,...

First, a reminder to watch Futurama tonight. The second half of season six starts at 10 pm and Patton Oswalt guest stars as Unattractive Giant Monster in the second episode, "Benderama," which airs at 10:30 on Comedy Central. Entertainment Weekly has an exclusive preview.

Esai Morales and Gun Hill Road director Rashaad Ernesto Green were interviewed for the Movie Addict Headquarters podcast on Blog Talk Radio. You can find the link to the interview here. Esai will be doing a tweet-up this Sunday at 3 pm Et. Eyes on @gunhillroadfilm for further updates. The film will next be screened at the Kansas City Gay and Lesbian Film Festival on Saturday, June 25.

Eric Stoltz seems to be everywhere this week. DVD Talk reports that they've seen him in a deleted scene of Elektra Luxx, out on DVD since Tuesday. Also, according to his IMDb page, he is directing an episode of Californication this...

Great news from the Leo Awards in Vancouver yesterday, where several Caprica & BSG actors snagged prizes. Congrats again to all who were nominated!

Best Lead Performance by a Female in a Dramatic Series

Carmen Moore - Blackstone - White Bread, Red Class

Best Supporting Performance by a Male in a Dramatic Series

Ryan Robbins - Sanctuary - Animus

Best Performance in a Youth or Children’s Program or Series

Richard Harmon - R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour - Nightmare Inn

Best Guest Performance by a Male in a Dramatic Series

Michael Eklund - Fringe - The Plateau

Best Lead Performance by a Male in a Dramatic Series

Callum Keith Rennie - Shattered - Out of Sorrow

Several cast projects also won awards. Transparency, with Kendall Cross, Aleks Paunovic and Anna Galvin, won two, for Best Direction and Best Picture Editing in a Feature Length Drama. Tucker & Dale vs Evil,...

The nominations for the Canadian Leo Awards have been announced today and several Caprica and BSG actors scored nods in different categories, for different projects. The Leos are presented by the Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Foundation of British Columbia.

Genevieve Buechner has been nominated for Best Supporting Performance by a Female in a Dramatic Series, for her work in Caprica 1x05, "There Is Another Sky." Huge congratulations to Genevieve and everyone else who has been nominated.

Here is the list:

Carmen Moore - Best Lead Performance by a Female in a Dramatic Series - Blackstone ("White Bread, Red Class")Ryan Robbins - Best Supporting Performance by a Male in a Dramatic Series - Sanctuary ("Animus")Brian Markinson - Best Supporting Performance by a Male in a Dramatic Series - Shattered ("Out of Sorrow")Richard Harmon - Best Performance in a Youth or Children’s Program or Series - The Haunting...

A quick roundup of things that happened since last week's update:

Beginning of Line is back with a new Caprica story, Safe Journey: The New Guatrau (Part 3 of 3). Hit the link to read it.

Alessandra Torresani did a music video for Baker's new single "All I'm Gonna Say." You can watch it on her blog, The Bambola Factory.

Fort McCoy with Eric Stoltz will be screened at two more festivals in the next month or so. The first screening is at the Sonoma Film Festival next Sunday (April 10, details here) and the second one at the Newport Beach Film Festival (April 30 & May 5, details here), which he is expected to attend. Still no word on which episode of Glee he is directing, but it's probably either 2x19 or 2x20.

Gun Hill Road with Esai Morales is getting screened at the Dallas Film Festival tomorrow (April 4) and the day after. There is...

Updates in random order:

IMDb has the first poster for Playback, Alessandra Torresani's new movie. No release date yet, but you can follow updates on that front on the film's official Facebook page.

Eric Stoltz is directing another episode of Glee.

Judas Kiss, with Richard Harmon and Genevieve Buechner, will be screened at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival on April 22.

Richard Harmon has been cast in Ansiedad (Anxiety), a new film with Eva Mendes that's shooting in Vancouver these days. More details about the film at ReviewonMovies.com.

Richard also attended the premiere of The Killing the other day. For photos (and general updates on his projects), visit RichardHarmonFan.com. And Cinemablend has a few new featurettes for The Killing, which premieres on Sunday, April 3, at 9 pm on AMC.

Riese is now available (or will be available on March 29) in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Japan, Latin America,...

The Caprica Season 1.5 DVD is out this Tuesday (Dec. 21) and you can still pre-order it on Amazon. NBC has sent out copies for review and the first interesting bits about the commentary tracks come from IGN's Eric Goldman; one about plans to have James Callis and Tricia Helfer appear in the second half of season one, and another about one of the Final Five appearing in season two (if the show hadn't been pulled).

If you haven't seen the last five episodes, the general consensus is that they're the best part of the season. For better or worse, the show got a lot more prequelized and the hour that was cut last year can be felt, especially in the last two episodes, but the storylines, characters, dialogue and everything else stayed as frakking inspired as it always has been. Be warned, though. The finale wraps up the most prominent storylines...

More Mipcom news

Toronto -- Kelly Rowan ("The O.C.") is to star in a series of TV mystery movies from indie co-producers Breakthrough Entertainment, Salient Point Prods. and Colossal Entertainment.

The "Rebecca Kane" wheel of mystery telefilms, created and written by Los Angeles-based Donald Martin, will feature Rowan as a secretary/sleuth to the chief of police in a sleepy fishing town.

The deal was unveiled at Mipcom by Marina Cordoni, executive producer of movies at Breakthrough.

Colossal Entertainment’s Graham Ludlow is producing the TV mystery movies, now in development.

Salient Point and Colossal Entertainment in 2007 collaborated on an earlier Kelly Rowan-starring TV movie, “In God’s Country,” this time with third partner Shaftesbury Films and for Canadian broadcaster CTV.

Other Canadian deals unveiled at Mipcom include FremantleMedia Enterprises picking up the international distribution and licensing rights to the live-action series "My Babysitter's A Vampire" from indie producer Fresh TV,...

It’s remarkably clear exactly what The New Adventures of Robin Hood wanted to accomplish with its campy take on the legendary vigilante and his merry band. Hercules had started two years before and was enjoying a successful run; Kevin Sorbo was reenacting the tales of the mythological hero, with plenty of creative license, and all he had to do was follow along with the modestly staged choreography and decently written scripts. The show was hammy, the special effects were barely par – but it didn’t matter, it was a Saturday afternoon serial and its audience was set. Enter Robin Hood. It wanted to latch on to that same viewership and thus took a lot of the same liberties, except it makes Hercules look like a television master stroke in comparison. This is the Plan 9 from Outer Space of Saturday afternoon serials.

You know the basic setup: the evil...