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WARCRAFT from Legendary Pictures and Universal Pictures (6/10/16)

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You are not kidding about China!

 

Warcraft Pulls In $145 Million In China In Just 4 Days

 

Universal and Legendary may not win the weekend box office with their video game adaptation Warcraft here in the U.S., but in one of the world's largest markets for film, it's no contest.

 

Warcraft has obliterated expectations in China, earning $145 million over its first four days in theatrical release.

 

For context, Star Wars: The Force Awakens earned $125 million in China...during its entire theatrical run.

 

Warcraft now has a worldwide total of $277 million from 51 markets so far with 23 launching this weekend, per Variety's math. It’s opened as the number one film in 45 of those markets, with launches starting May 25.

 

:o

According to boxofficemojo it made 144.7 million from the 8th - 10th, which is only 3 days. It should pass 250 in China by Sunday. It will be their biggest opening & pass Furious 7's 390 million total. Might even come close to China's Mei ren yu (The Mermaid) total of $526,848,189.

 

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=intl&id=warcraft.htm

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As a fan of the game It's a shame this isn't doing well outside China, especially in the US where it should have done a lot better. Most people are saying it's good but it should have been longer. The director mentioned there would be a much longer cut if it grosses enough. The studio demanded a lot be cut so it would only be 2 hours. I guess a directors cut is the best we can hope for. I doubt there will be a sequel now. I really wanted to see Worgens and Taurens :(

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I loved it, my 10 year old girl and 11 year old boy really liked it.

My wife who went through ever other movie online desperate to find some thing else for us to see, sat there for 15 minutes looking seriously pizzed off...at the end said, "ok, fine, that was actually awesome"

We had a great time, it's another one of those 20/80 splits between the critics and the public on rotten tomatoes , hopefully word of mouth will make it do better

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Wow - the domestic Friday estimates are in, and it looks like The Conjuring 2 did 50% more business than Warcraft yesterday.

 

In fewer theaters...

 

and at 1/4 the budget...

 

 

Ouch

 

dont underestimate horror fans, especially when they havent had a horror movie to watch in a while...

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Wow - the domestic Friday estimates are in, and it looks like The Conjuring 2 did 50% more business than Warcraft yesterday.

 

In fewer theaters...

 

and at 1/4 the budget...

 

 

Ouch

 

dont underestimate horror fans, especially when they havent had a horror movie to watch in a while...

 

Agreed - but this The Conjuring series is also a cut above your generic low budget horror-of-the-month film, with two solid A- lead actors (Patrick Wilson & Vera Farmiga).

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I loved it, my 10 year old girl and 11 year old boy really liked it.

My wife who went through ever other movie online desperate to find some thing else for us to see, sat there for 15 minutes looking seriously pizzed off...at the end said, "ok, fine, that was actually awesome"

We had a great time, it's another one of those 20/80 splits between the critics and the public on rotten tomatoes , hopefully word of mouth will make it do better

 

DOA in the US. $24-25MM opening weekend, probably won't hit $65MM domestic

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For those that are hardcore gamers, these details may be appreciated more by you.

 

Every Warcraft Movie Easter Egg & Game Reference

 

20. The Boy Who Will Be King

 

The average movie fan probably won’t recognize the significance of Durotan’s son, aside from the work done to make his father and mother’s story a truly tragic one. But even casual Warcraft fans may not recognize the boy by his name – Go’el – instead knowing him by the name that he is given by humans: Thrall. The man seen discovering the boy at the end of the film is Aedelas Blackmoore, who (in the original story) named the boy Thrall (“slave”) and trained him to be as brutal as would be expected from an Orc, but the intellect and strategy of a human. When the boy sought out his own people, it wasn’t long before Orgrim found him, and he began his ascent to becoming the greatest leader the Orc Horde had known.

 

Warcraft-Movie-Baby-Thrall.jpg

 

That's a pretty cool detail.

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I thought the Orcs were far better than the humans when it came to acting.

 

I was absolutely amazed by how great the orcs were. I thought they'd be the film's weakness, but Durotan, Orgrim, Blackhand, and Gul'Dan were freaking amazing. I don't think it's possible to be a fan of the game and not be astounded by that Gul'Dan vs. Durotan fight. They've only ever shown Gul'Dan as being this hunched-over guy who you barely remember is an orc, so to show him as being buff--but far less buff than all the other orcs--and far taller than you'd think was cool. Plus those spikes being a part of him as opposed to being a part of his outfit was just awesome.

 

Really enjoyed the film, and I'm also surprised at how small the US box office is. About 3 million people subscribe to the game in China and 3 million in the US, so I didn't have any idea that the box office takes would be so vastly different between the countries given that the subscriber base is the same. Wonder why the movie audience is so much bigger than the subscriber base in China? ???

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For those that are hardcore gamers, these details may be appreciated more by you.

 

Every Warcraft Movie Easter Egg & Game Reference

 

20. The Boy Who Will Be King

 

The average movie fan probably won’t recognize the significance of Durotan’s son, aside from the work done to make his father and mother’s story a truly tragic one. But even casual Warcraft fans may not recognize the boy by his name – Go’el – instead knowing him by the name that he is given by humans: Thrall. The man seen discovering the boy at the end of the film is Aedelas Blackmoore, who (in the original story) named the boy Thrall (“slave”) and trained him to be as brutal as would be expected from an Orc, but the intellect and strategy of a human. When the boy sought out his own people, it wasn’t long before Orgrim found him, and he began his ascent to becoming the greatest leader the Orc Horde had known.

 

Warcraft-Movie-Baby-Thrall.jpg

 

That's a pretty cool detail.

 

I knew who he was as soon as they showed Drakka being pregnant...he's the most famous orc in the game and one of the top three most-used characters in the game of any race. All of the characters in this film mostly precede the events shown in World of Warcraft so even fans aren't all that familiar with Durotan, Orgrim, Lothar, or King Llane since they've never been shown in the game, but Thrall has been a part of it from the start.

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The main problem with the film is that they packed waaaay too much into it. Too much plot, too many characters, too many races, too much content that would seem unbelievable to the average person that was simply presented with no back story. To hardcore fans, we're used to it so we loved it, but to everyone else, it was a Lord of the Rings rip-off with too much extra wildly_fanciful_statement packed in. Which isn't far from the truth for the game's story and content, either, but meh, I've enjoyed medieval fantasy for decades now so I accept it easily.

 

The CGI on the orcs was amazing, best I've ever seen. But we needed more focus on just the main characters and their relationships--Durotan, Lothar, Garona, Blackhand, Medivh, Gul'Dan, and Khadgar--and less of everything else. Even that list of main characters needed to be shorter...they probably should have left Blackhand, Garona, and Khadgar out of this story. Less magic, fewer fantastic creatures, less fantasy overall and more focus on relatable characters and events. Tolkien introduced magical elements sparingly and largely focused on characters, but this movie threw in tons of flash that just overwhelmed and confused the audience and taxed our willingness to suspend our disbelief of the impossible over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Fans suspended their disbelief years or decades ago, but a fresh audience was presented with far too much for the average person to be able to swallow it.

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The CGI on the orcs was amazing, best I've ever seen. But we needed more focus on just the main characters and their relationships--Durotan, Lothar, Garona, Blackhand, Medivh, Gul'Dan, and Khadgar--and less of everything else.

 

It is good to hear at least the CGI was vastly better than the initial trailers displayed, as that seemed to turn people off early on.

 

:applause:

 

Does it have a shot at a sequel movie from what you saw?

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The CGI on the orcs was amazing, best I've ever seen. But we needed more focus on just the main characters and their relationships--Durotan, Lothar, Garona, Blackhand, Medivh, Gul'Dan, and Khadgar--and less of everything else.

 

It is good to hear at least the CGI was vastly better than the initial trailers displayed, as that seemed to turn people off early on.

 

:applause:

 

Does it have a shot at a sequel movie from what you saw?

 

Definitely, but the numbers may not work out. If it wasn't for China I'd say there definitely won't be a sequel, but if they think a sequel will play well enough there to fund it, they may go for it.

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Another way to capture the public's problem with Warcraft--think about what Game of Thrones did with medieval fantasy. It went far more towards realism than even Lord of the Rings ever did. Warcraft is in the opposite direction and has ratcheted the fantasy up to 11. That leaves most people behind because they can't relate to it. Science fiction as a whole is somewhat of a niche that has had trouble appealing to mass audiences as first evidenced on a wide stage by the highly-regarded "Star Trek" show getting cancelled in the 1960s. If a story isn't grounded in enough reality, a mass audience loses interest. The entire idea of "Warcraft" was never going to appeal to a mass audience. You had to ground it in more reality than the game does for it to work.

 

But the China box office suggests that they seem to really love fantasy. I don't know a lot about their culture or history for the past century, but I'm guessing it's because they're new to the world of media compared to the US or Japan. I sort of knew how big Warcraft is in China...they devoted an entire expansion to Chinese culture, the "Mists of Pandaria" expansion. The architecture, landscapes, and the Pandaren race from that game were all direct allusions to Chinese history and culture.

 

World-of-Warcraft-Player-Close-to-Level-100-on-Factionless-Pandaren-474603-2.jpg

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I'm a long time on and off again WoW player (since launch day), and played the Warcraft games before that. I made some time to go see the Warcraft movie today. So, as someone well familiar with the Warcraft world, I'll make a quick review.

 

I went in expecting a fairly poor film akin to the Dungeons and Dragons movies a few years back. The film far exceeded my expectations, and made use of the rich (if not great) lore Blizzard has written over the years. The orc CGI work was great, the story was good, the acting was mostly solid, with a couple weak minor character performances.

 

Overall, if you have never played WoW or Warcraft, id rate it as a 3 star fantasy movie that's worth seeing in the theater if you're a fantasy fan, or on your movie channel of choice if not. If you have played the games, you'll get more out of the movie and find it very enjoyable. I liked it enough I'll probably see it again.

 

 

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Just got back from this. You definitely need to be a fan of the series in order to get any enjoyment out of the plot. Of which there is little. Or what there is of it, is totally driven to the sequels. Being a fan of the second game and the expansion, Beyond The Dark Portal, I understood a few characters that showed up, and the plot line they followed through.

 

CGI was pretty good, but I am not turned off by these types of special effects to begin with.

 

It's extremely slow at the beginning, and the plot doesn't really have enough to have it move that slow. However, character progression is extremely fast, and basically leaves you to already know who the characters are.

 

It's a difficult movie to watch, in all honesty. I felt like the editing was erratic.

 

I probably won't watch this again, but for something to do in a empty movie theater, it was a night out.

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My two cents, as a longtime player of the entire game franchise (the RTSes and WoW):

 

They shoulda had tie-in novel writer and lore-expander Christie Golden help with the story.

 

STUFF I LIKED:

 

There was a lot of fan service and an overall respect for the source material (including little details like geography), which was nice. It was awesome to recognize Stormwind and Ironforge from the game. Likewise all the gear, costumes and architecture. This is not a movie that redesigned everything from scratch, and that's to its great credit.

 

I agree with those who've said the CGI orcs--even their quiet, talky scenes--were the best part of the film. Imagine a "Phantom Edit" cut of the movie with just the Orcs.

 

STUFF I HATED:

 

Most of the human roles were poorly cast. I go hot and gold on "Vikings" star Travis Fimmel, but his whispery voice was poorly suited to this bombastic epic. There's no stars on the human side (save Glenn Close), and that didn't help. Dominic West seemed swallowed up in his armor and wig. Medivh seemed way too young and surfer-dude-ish. The callow young mage Khadgar was played by a callow actor--and he put me in mind of the *shudder* D&D movie with Jeremy Irons and Thora Birch.

 

(Although nerd points for casting Callum Keith Rennie and Ruth Negga--from "Battlestar Galactica" and "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", respectively.)

 

The Night Elves looked like Blood Elves and like . (If the lore says that there were Blood Elves in the Alliance at that point, then I stand corrected, but they still looked like .)

 

NAILS ON A BLACKBOARD:

 

Every time anyone calls Medivh "Guardian." Do you call your lawyer "Lawyer?" Do you call your daughter "Daughter?" This was a "You Don't Get It, Do You?"-level lazy writer's crutch, and it took me out of the movie every time I heard it. (For the record, I think Durotan even says "you don't get it, do you?")

 

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES:

 

Just ONCE couldn't somebody have killed somebody else and looted the body? (The polymorph joke was awesome, though.)

 

More source music. Actual, awesome, Jason Hayes-composed WoW themes are only used twice in the film, and one of those times is over the closing credits.

 

 

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