‘Warcraft’ Trailer: From MMORPG to Massive Summer Blockbuster

I spent my freshman year of college doing three things: I went to class, I watched a lot of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and I played a ton of Warcraft II on my dorm’s then incredibly futuristic high-speed Internet. (Dude, no dial-up modem! Amazing!) That was 1998, and video games and movies have come a long way since then. Warcraft II eventually morphed into World of Warcraft, the hugely successful MMORPG. And now Warcraft is coming to movie screens, in what looks to be an epic movie from Moon and Source Code director Duncan Jones.

I’m only got a vague familiar with WoW, but this film is still pretty recognizable from the game I played almost 20 years ago. (Also: Holy crap I’m old. I’m like the knight in Last Crusade old.) You’ve got your humans and you’ve got your orcs and they’re going to fight, although the trailer suggests that there could be an alliance to save them from a common enemy. Here’s the official synopsis:

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.

Faithful or not to the world of Warcraft (you heard me), my big question is whether non-Warcraft players are going to come out to this movie in big numbers. If you don’t know this material, this trailer looks pretty weird; most of the screen time goes to a CGI character with huge warthog teeth (and not an entirely convincing one either). It looks like a niche product, but it definitely didn’t have a niche budget, which might be a wee bit of an issue. We’ll know on June 10, 2016; that’s when Warcraft finally opens in theaters.