Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, Drag Me to Hell) was spotted on the red carpet at the Saturn Awards recently and the press was able to ask the fan favorite director a few questions about his future projects and more importantly the World of Warcraft movie.

When asked what he’s been up to, the director immediately brought up what seems like a passion project to him with Warcraft, explaining that he’s been hard at work in pre-production with writers adapting what is now only a 40 page story document into a feature length film.

Per Sam:

“There’s so many aspects of the game that I really enjoy, like the battles… doing sword battles. Like, performing spells and learning new spells and getting to the next level like everybody else.”

He goes on to talk about the wondrous landscapes and giant monsters that really drew him in to the game as well. In fact, Raimi seems to like the world enough to let slip that the story they are currently working on takes place entirely in the game, and does not break meta to include flesh and blood players like some had supposed. I think that’s the only way to tackle a project like this, as trying to incorporate gamers into the storyline would come off as skewed and disingenuous (as funny as it was in Hackers).

One of the reasons I trust Raimi with the property is the tale he regales to the interviewer regarding his online experiences with World of Warcraft:

“I had a level 29 Shaman that somebody deleted by accident that I worked my way up to, and now I’ve worked a new character up to level 72. So thats [sic] exactly how big a fan I am. I’m not into power leveling, [having] other people doing that for me. So I’ve spent that many days in the World of Warcraft.”

The film is rumored to take place around the lives of some of the more major characters in the Warcraft universe. It is being released by Legendary Pictures which is a pretty good sign considering the sheer amount of action epics they have released recently, such as 300, The Dark Knight, Clash of the Titans, etc. What this means is that a director like Raimi who had been used to working with large special effects and name actors with Sony Pictures is not going to be hampered by the change in studios and will be able to create a massive scale to depict the saga of the Warcraft movie.

Which, from his excitement over the property, is surely the scale the fans are going to want:

“I love the visual world that the guys over at Blizzard created. It’s incredibly, engrossingly terrifying and exciting. I like the use of scale, the giant monsters they have. I like the different landscapes your character can move through.”

I don’t know about you Ranters out there but I’ve personally been a fan of Raimi’s work since I first snuck my friend’s copy of Evil Dead into my house as a kid, and my nerd respect continued to grow as he took on Darkman and the Spider-Man franchise. If he’s at the helm and he’s excited about it, then I think we’re finally due for a great videogame to movie transition with World of Warcraft.

Here’s the full interview, you know this guy’s gonna watch it:

Source: Collider