Warcraft movie to give geeks brief reason to leave their bedrooms

By Jeff Flynn

Sam Raimi, unconventional director of the Evil Dead Trilogy and Spiderman films, has signed on to bring the popular game-for-geeks, ‘World of Warcraft’, to the big screen.

World of Warcraft, which has over 11 million users worldwide, is the largest online gaming community of its kind, wherein its ‘players’ can adopt the characteristics of fantastical beings from other worlds.

The characters, imbued with incredible powers and skills, then pit these ‘skills’ against each other, in a bid to attain a greater level of rank in the community and an increased personal sense of self esteem beyond their pitiful real-world existence.

Raimi, who has admitted to never actually playing the game, has reassured fans by promising to be “Totally honest and true to the spirit of the game”.

Plot

The plot of the film is being kept under wraps, but Raimi did reveal his take on the potential multi-million-dollar franchise, “I basically see the story as a coming–of-age nerd comedy, a bit like ‘Superbad’.”

“The central character has to come to terms with the realisation that no woman anywhere in the world is ever going to sleep with him, ever, because he is such a massive fucking loser. Then he gets attacked by a dragon.”

Jeff Robinov, president of Warner Bros Pictures Group, who will be producing the film added, “Let’s be totally honest here, the kind of people who play this game own every season of Xena: Warrior Princess on DVD and have a ‘wank-sock’ hidden under their beds.”

“Cynically, we hope that by employing a ‘geeky’ name director who has made the kind of films these pathetic nerds seem to enjoy, we’ll get these hormonally challenged dorks to leave their dimly-lit bedrooms for two hours and spend some dollar at their local multiplex.”

“After all, it worked for that Kiwi fella.”

The film franchise, still in pre-production, is due to go before the cameras in 2011.