Duncan Jones fought to keep Blizzard’s Warcraft true to its roots, rejecting Hollywood’s push to make humans the sole heroes.

Hollywood and video games have a love-hate relationship, mostly leaning toward the latter. For every decent adaptation, there are a dozen misfires that make fans shake their heads in disappointment.

Yet, Warcraft stands out as a rare gem in this chaotic landscape. Directed by Duncan Jones, the film managed to capture the grandeur of Blizzard’s legendary fantasy universe while remaining accessible to newcomers. However, this cinematic adventure almost took a wildly different, and much worse, direction.

A still from Warcraft | Credits: Universal Pictures

Early in its development, there were plans to make the human characters the sole heroes while portraying every other race as villains. Duncan Jones, a true Warcraft fan, wasn’t having any of that. His resistance to this oversimplification is the reason Warcraft became one of the most faithful, visually stunning, and unexpectedly good video game movies to date.

The battle over Duncan Jones’ Warcraft’s story was a close call

A still from World of Warcraft: The War Within | Credits: Blizzard Entertainment

When a movie adaptation of World of Warcraft was first announced, longtime fans of the franchise had every reason to be skeptical. Hollywood’s track record with video game adaptations was, to put it kindly, abysmal.

But when Duncan Jones took over as director, things started looking up. However, there was a problem, early versions of the script wanted to follow a predictable Hollywood formula, where humans were the noble warriors, and every other race, Orcs, Trolls, and the Undead, were reduced to mindless villains. When Jones was asked about that in an interview with thrillist, he said,

When I got involved there was an approach to the film which was more “humans are the heroes and the invading orcs were the bad guys.” It didn’t ring true to me as to what the Warcraft game is. As someone who is familiar with the game, it really mattered to me that that element of it was accurate. 

I think being able to make the orcs more human, up their screen time, and balance the audience empathy for those orc characters was all something that felt absolutely crucial to me. I was fortunate that I was able to convince the powers that be that that was the right thing to do.

For anyone familiar with Warcraft’s lore, this approach was a complete betrayal of the source material. Warcraft isn’t about black-and-white morality, it’s a saga of clashing cultures, tragic misunderstandings, and characters who believe they’re doing the right thing, even when they’re at odds.

Duncan Jones saw the depth of this world and fought to preserve it. His vision led to a film where both sides, humans and Orcs, had compelling perspectives, making the conflict feel grander, more emotional, and far more engaging than a simple good-versus-evil tale.

Why Warcraft worked when others failed

A still of the orcs in Warcraft | Credits: Universal Pictures

The reason Warcraft stands out isn’t just because of its epic battles and breathtaking CGI. It’s because it respects its source material. World of Warcraft has millions of fans obsessed with gaming including the creator of Black Myth Wukong, Feng Ji.

Hence, it’s natural for such a game’s movie adaptation to incite excitement. So many video game movies fail because they either strip away what makes the games special or try too hard to appeal to audiences who have never played them.

Warcraft strikes a delicate balance. It introduces a massive fantasy world but doesn’t dumb it down. It showcases legendary characters like Lothar and Durotan without making them feel like generic action heroes. Most importantly, it respects the idea that there are no absolute heroes or villains in this universe, just different sides fighting for survival.

Sure, the film had its flaws. Some critics found it overwhelming, and others thought it was too lore-heavy. Although the film was a hit globally, grossing $439 million according to IMDb, it was only able to collect $47 million in the US.

For fans of the franchise, it was a love letter to everything that made Warcraft great. And considering what almost happened, humans as the sole good guys and every other race demonized, it’s a miracle that we got such a faithful adaptation at all.

Duncan Jones may not have saved all video game movies, but he certainly gave us one of the best ones out there. With the Microsoft acquisition maybe a sequel isn’t far away.

Warcraft can be streamed on Netflix.