Gamertell

Ain’t It Cool News let the Corrupted Cat out of the bag and now Blizzard has confirmed it with a release: Sam Raimi will direct the World of Warcraft movie.

Raimi is world famous for directing the Spider-man trilogy. Also in his roots is the Evil Dead trilogy which includes the movie Army of Darkness that features a fantasy warscape setting that has quite a bit in common with WoW. In many ways, this film is like Army of Darkness with an even bigger budget. An expected release date has not yet been confirmed.

Charles Roven’s Atlas Entertainment is handling production chores for this movie so, if this fails, it won’t be because of the budget. One of the typical downfalls of game movies is that the games in question have no story to speak of. Seriously, who can tell me much about the story of Super Mario Bros. other than Princess Peach gets kidnapped a lot? Who remembers (or cares) why the scantily clad Dead or Alive women are fighting each other? The battle between the Horde and the Alliance certainly offers great potential for stories.

Whether the movie is any good or not, it will continue the rapid expansion of the WoW brand that now includes comic books, collectible card and miniature games. There are even soda flavors now. As if that weren’t enough to burn it into the pop culture lexicon, a commercial campaign has celebrities ranging from Mr. T to William Shatner proclaiming they play the game.

WoW, it’s the new uberbrand.

Read [Gamertell] Also Read [Warcraft Movie Chronicles]