Is a StarCraft movie in the works? No, it isn’t, but Blizzard would be down with the idea if Avatar director James Cameron was on board.
True to its name, PC giant Blizzard doesn’t do anything at a speed faster than absolutely glacial. The idea of a Warcraft movie was first mentioned in 2006, but it wasn’t until last year that the flick actually got a director – horror movie icon Sam Raimi. Given that its long-awaited StarCraft II is the new hotness, though, would the developer ever consider making a movie out of its sci-fi franchise, too?
Maybe, if the conditions were right. And by “if the conditions were right,” I mean “if the director of Avatar and Aliens signed on to the project.” Speaking with MTV Multiplayer, Blizzard head honcho Rob Pardo said that the studio had considered the idea of a StarCraft flick before.
We’ve always had an interest in seeing our stuff on film or TV. It’s just tricky to find the right partners. We probably could have made a [StarCraft] movie or something on TV years and years ago, but it’s really important to us that we find creative people that are really talented but also really excited about our properties. That’s always been the challenge for us. I think if Jim Cameron came to us tomorrow and said, “You want to make a StarCraft movie?” we’d probably sign that.
Rather than hand its franchises over to someone like Uwe Boll, Blizzard is all about working with movie-makers that fit the series in question. “That’s why we did the WoW movie,” says Pardo. “We were really excited about being involved with [300 studio] Legendary Pictures, who we thought had a really good track record with these sorts of movies that would make sense for our franchises.”
The more I think about it, the more I think that James Cameron would actually be an excellent fit for Blizzard and StarCraft. Cameron helped define the modern space marine feel with his work on Aliens (and there’s no denying that Blizzard, as with practically every other sci-fi property out there, cribs heavily from those Aliens). He’s familiar with taking his time on a project, too – work on Avatar began way back in 1994.
More importantly, both Blizzard and Cameron seem to be a-okay with the idea of doing things that aren’t very original, as long as they’re done well. Avatar‘s story was as generic as they come, and StarCraft won’t be winning any awards for the strength of its narrative anytime soon, but they’re well-presented nonetheless. Just get someone else to write the dialogue, please.
Either way, I think we can agree that a collaboration between the people who make World of Warcraft and the guy who made Avatar would be the most profitable project in the history of everything, right?
After it came out in 2039.
