Duncan Jones Reveals Story Points And New Concept Art For 'Warcraft'

Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code) is hard at work on the pre-production stage of Warcraft, his film adaptation of the game world seen in Blizzard video games Warcraft and World of Warcraft.

The film doesn't shoot until early 2014, but a lot of work has already gone into the project. Jones and his producers appeared at Blizzcon over the weekend, and sat in on a panel talking about the film. While they still haven't released the proof of concept footage shown at Comic Con this past summer, the panel discussion debuted some concept art, which you can see below, and offered a few details on the script.

Jones said that the original script was too heavily focused on human and Alliance characters. Kotaku reports that He explained that in the version that will shoot, "it's about both sides. It's going to be red and blue," and hopefully the Orc forces will be just as relatable as the humans.

The director said he has cast chosen (but did not reveal names) and explains that the script's central tale is "the story of Anduin Lothar versus Durotan, Human and Orc heroes from the original real-time strategy games. ... It's been hard to find an actor who looks like Durotan. Every time I meet an actor I just try to squish his face." Both leaders are trying to prepare their faction for the war that is obviously coming.

Special effects supervisor Bill Westenhofer has been a World of Warcraft player since 2004, and he explained that the orcs would not be CG, but rather actors wearing makeup. He also said the film is similar in tone to Gladiator, and that "the swords that are being built [for the film] are the biggest swords a human being can wield."

The concept art showed Orc home Draenor, magic city Dalaran, Dwarven homestead Ironforge, and Alliance core Stormwind. Here's a gallery.

Warcraft is set for release on December 18, 2015. Given that Star Wars Episode VII just moved to that date, we wouldn't be surprised to see Warcraft move.