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After much ado, the first epic Warcraft trailer is finally here

Rick Marshall
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The live-action Warcraft movie arrives in theaters in just over seven months, but up to this point we’ve seen relatively little of the film. That changed today as the first trailer for the much-anticipated movie based on the hit game franchise made its debut.
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Announced by Legendary Pictures and Universal Pictures the trailer premiered today during BlizzCon, Blizzard Entertainment’s annual convention. Released to the public shortly afterwards, the action-packed preview offers many fans their first significant look at the film, which was announced almost ten years ago.

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Beginning with a magnificent scene of Sir Anduin Lothar (Travis Fimmel) on a gigantic bald eagle, the trailer sets up the plot of the film, which chronicles the early days of the war and the origins of the feud between the humans and the orcs. We get a rich glimpse of both the humans and orcs engaging in some epic action both on the field of battle and in the skies above the kingdom of Azeroth.

The cast of the film portray a long list of popular characters from the game franchise, including Lothar and the Chieftan of the Frostwolf clan of orcs Durotan (Toby Kebbel) with various locations from the games providing the setting for the film. Through sweeping landscapes ala The Hobbit franchise, the film follows the theme of the first poster that juxtaposes the warring factions of the human Alliance and the orcs of The Horde.

warcraft movie poster
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Along with Fimmel as Lothar, the human side of the cast includes Dominic Cooper as King Llane Wrynn, Ben Foster as Medivh, Ben Schnetzer as Khadgar, and Ruth Negga as Lady Taria. The cast of orc characters adds to Kebbel’s Duratan with Clancy Brown as Blackhand, Robert Kazinsky as Ogrim, and Daniel Wu as Gul’Dan. Paula Patton plays the half-orc Garona, who’s caught in the middle of the conflict.

Co-written and directed by Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code), the long-awaited film was originally scheduled to premiere this December, but was later pushed back to avoid competing with Star Wars: The Force Awakens (a wise choice for any movie, really). Warcraft is now scheduled to arrive in standard and 3D theaters June 10, 2016.

Updated 11/6/15 by Ryan Waniata: This post was updated to reveal the premiere of the first Warcraft trailer

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Rick Marshall
Rick Marshall
Former Digital Trends Contributor
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
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