Through TheFLY's Eyes: Vivendi's Blizzard Entertainment
from Theflyonthewall.com















WarCraft: Coming to a Theater Near You

After Friday's discussion of this summer's upcoming movies and yesterday's blog on the video game industry, This Fly found this article from the New York Times, which discusses Blizzard's plans to make a big-budget movie out of its Warcraft video game series, particularly pertinent.

The video game maker, Blizzard Entertainment, which is owned by Vivendi (V), is planning to announce a "big-budget 'Lord of the Rings'-style live-action film" based on the Warcraft PC game series. The most recent of the series, World of Warcraft, is currently the most popular video game in the world.

If this movie, which no details are currently available for, manages to make a more lasting impact than past failures such as "Lara Croft: TombRaider" and "Doom," it could be the catalyst that both the movie studios and the video game industry need.

The movie studios are clearly in need of new ideas, as most movies currently playing are either sequels or remakes. Recently, the studios have successfully converted fantasy books (Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter) and comic books (Spider-man, X-Men) into box office successes, but the well is running dry (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Elektra). If a movie based on Warcraft can prove that video games can be successful in theaters, there could be a lot of new, fresh material for Hollywood to cannibalize.

The slumping video game developers, which are already looking into in-game advertising as an additional source of revenue, could use the extra income. If the scripts are taken seriously, the movies could not only provide revenue for the developers, but also free advertising.