Sam Raimi to create The World of Warcraft

THE WORLD OF WARCRAFT Live Action MOVIE!!!
All you World of Warcraft fanatics, rejoice! Not only is The World of Warcraft going to be made into a movie, good news is also that Sam Raimi is going to supervise & possibly direct the development of The World of Warcraft.

Michael Fleming of Variety reports that Legendary Pictures and videogame publisher Blizzard Entertainment are mounting the film, and Warner Bros. will co-finance and distribute. The team boasts an impressive pedigree: In addition to the director of "Spider-Man," the partners have added "The Dark Knight" producer Charles Roven to the creative mix.

The plan is for Raimi to supervise development of "Warcraft" and shoot the picture after he completes work on "Spider-Man 4," which gets under way early next year for Columbia Pictures. The movie will be financed under the Legendary Pictures' co-production and co-financing deal with WB, in a manner similar to the Todd Phillips-directed "The Hangover" plus the Roven-produced "Batman Begins" and "Dark Knight."

To all you Noobs who are not familiar with this thing, The "Warcraft" universe features an epic conflict between the Horde and the Alliance. The game has developed a global following since its launch in 1994 and shows no signs of slowing. Its most recent expansion, "Wrath of the Lich King," sold more than 2.8 million copies in the first day of release and more than 4 million its first month.

"Warcraft" is "emblematic of the kind of branded, event films for which our studio is best known," said Warner Bros. Pictures Group president Jeff Robinov. The deal revives a long-dormant pact made by Legendary and Blizzard for a film adaptation of the game.
[source: variety.com]

Literally, this is "WoW"! Raimi, in my opinion, is a great choice for the project. Not only is he an ideal director when it comes to genre films and fantastic action adventure films like the Spider-man movies, the Evil Dead trilogy, and even serious horror flicks such as A Simple Plan, but he has also shown interest in medieval adventures when his Evil Dead series crossed over to the dark ages with Evil Dead 3, better known as "The Army of Darkness". Sure, it had an intentionally comedic element, but that was understandable, and that the effects were cheap, it's all because when he made this thing, he was still a struggling director creating his own geek saga. And speaking of geek, Raimi is a true-blooded geek. Now, Raimis has proven his worth. He is ready to direct an epic saga which is the Warcraft Universe. With a project like Warcraft, its fanatics are better off with a director that understands the source material. You dont want a non-geek directing this thing! (Look at what happened to Transformers 2)