Thursday night at the Saturn Awards in Los Angeles, Collider.com got a chance to chat with Sam Raimi as he strolled the red carpet. The short interview featured a small range of topics that spanned rumors of him working on The Hobbit, talk of Oz as his next project, and of course the movie based on our beloved MMORPG, World of Warcraft.
Raimi first said that he's currently working with Robert Rodat on a treatment for the WoW-based movie, adding that it's "coming along very well." Then after answering a few questions in regards to The Hobbit and Oz, he was asked about what excited him most about WoW in regards to being a filmmaker.
"I love the visual world the guys over at Blizzard have created," he said. "It's incredibly, engrossingly terrifying and exciting. I like the use of scale--the giant monsters they have. I love the different landscapes that your character can move through. I like the first-person interaction you have with other players online. There are so many aspects about the game that I really enjoy."
He was then asked about the angle of the story. "We're still working on the story right now, and we've got a 40-page document that needs a lot more work, but every draft that we do with Robert Rodat gets better and better. We're finding the characters due to the characters finding the story. There's no real angle on it. We're just trying to create realistic characters that can live in the world of Warcraft like as though you were in the game itself in one or two or three of those environments, and see the interaction with those great, mythical, iconic characters."
The interview goes on to ask how Raimi and the team will overcome the process of translating games to film that have tragically nuked other failed projects. He also clarified that the movie isn't based on real-world players entering the virtual fantasy realm--this will be a 100-percent epic fantasy movie like Lord of the Rings and other popular flicks in the genre.
To see the full video interview, head here.
