Actual Movie Director to Attempt Making a Non-Terrible Videogame Movie

• via cosplayoverload.com, perhaps the most accurately named site ever

As someone who loved Duncan Jones’ Moon but was disappointed by his follow-up, Source Code, I find this news… interesting.

Duncan Jones is making the jump to big-budget tentpole movies, signing on to direct Warcraft, Legendary Pictures’ live-action adaptation of Blizzard Entertainment’s video game universe….

Taking an almost kitchen-sink approach to fantasy, Warcraft, which has grown to be one of the most popular multiplayer online role-playing games out there, is part fantasy, part science fiction and—depending on the game you’re playing—includes elements such as dragons and orcs, zombies and werewolves, and aliens and spaceships. (Via.)

I haven’t touched World of Warcraft since I wrote a feature about it a million years ago (the thing I’m most proud of in that article: The O.C. reference). So maybe I’m out of the loop—maybe the kung fu panda expansion really took it to the next level—but but from what I remember, Warcraft‘s world was generic and candy-colored enough that infusing it with any unique personality, let alone finding a narrative within it, would seem incredibly challenging. Even the crappy videogame movies we’ve gotten so far have started off with more cohesive narratives and characters than are immediately evident in World of Warcraft‘s open-ended playground. Much of the appeal of the increasingly aged WoW is that players can tailor the experience to how they want to play; once you strip away that customization, you’re left with little more than a vague, sprawling fantasy setting.

That said, Jones sounds up for the challenge.