Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Sam Raimi to enter the "World of Warcraft"

You know, I probably shouldn't admit it, but just about my entire knowledge of "World of Warcraft" comes from that fantastic "South Park" episode. It's certainly not that I think I'm too old or above it to play video games, it's simply that I've never, ever been terribly good at them.

With Sam Raimi attached to this, however, I can still deliver it as only insanely good news. One of the real mysteries of this summer is why more people didn't turn out for Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell," which was a really solid return to form. Granted, a woman vomiting up a dead kitten is one of the movie's milder scenes, but it was still the most fun I've have had watching a movie this summer.

And now, Blizzard Entertainment and Legendary Pictures have handed him the reins for what should be a boffo budget to make a movie from the epicly popular game, and I can guarantee this will be the first (I really can't think of any others I've seen) movie based on a video game I'll definitely see in a theater.

And if you're a fan of Bruce Lee (and really, who the heck isn't?), there's even better news out there this morning. I had heard there was going to be a biopic on the kung fu master, but had no idea it was going to be on the scale of this.

Apparently, a Chinese company called J.A. Media is making a three-part biopic on Lee, with the first chapter to begin shooting in October. The part of Bruce Lee has yet to be cast, but his father will be played by Tony Leung Ka-fai, and though no director has been picked yet either, Zhang Yimou has apparently expressed interest. Nothing but awesome there.

And finally, to close an admittedly short post, here's the best video I could find today, which is a four-and-a-half-minute clip from the upcoming flick "9," for which I've seen the trailer what seems like 500 times. Each time I do, I can't help but laugh every time I hear the phrase "visionary director Shane Acker," since I can't for the life of me name one thing he's ever directed. It does, however, feature the voice talents of Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover and even Martin Landau, and the animation (which I assume will have to, by force, be 3-D) does look really cool, so enjoy the clip, and have a perfectly passable Wednesday. Peace out.

6 comments:

Vernon Sanchez said...

This should be great news for all WoW fans out there...

Terence Towles Canote said...

I have to admit all I know about WoW is from an ex girlfriend who played MMORPGs (although she preferred EverQuest). Still, I think Raimi could do the subject well. Of course, I'd rather he tackle The Shadow movie he was rumoured to be going to do a few years ago.

A three part biopic of Bruce Lee...that should be interesting!

Anonymous said...

This looks promising but what he did with some of the Spider-man movies isn't the reason why this movie will be good.



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Unknown said...

I hope they choose to make this one rated R because that would just make it awesome. www.yovia.com/blogs/timlara

Anonymous said...

I'm not a big MMORPG player myself, but I've heard a lot about it and this could definitely make for a good flick.

MMORPGs are an untapped movie market, although some documentaries like Second Skin (http://bit.ly/SSkin) have delved into the human element of these things. I saw this one at SXSW and it blew my mind.

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