The Warcraft franchise may be one of the gaming industry’s heavyweights, but we still know very little about how it will make the transition from game to screen in Moon director Duncan Jones’ upcoming Warcraft movie.
Production on the project recently wrapped, and other than a shot of Jones gazing at an array of monitors and some discussion of why post-production on the film will take two years, few details have emerged regarding the characters, plot, or narrative framework of Warcraft. Some of that mystery was lifted over the weekend, however, when actor Ben Foster (3:10 To Yuma, Lone Survivor) shed some light on the character he’s playing in the film.
“The character in Warcraft that I play is named Medivh,” Foster told IGN. “He’s a mage, which is essentially a sorcerer. He came up in a time protecting an area, and the way he protected this area was through magic. As peace returned to this land he took a break. He hung up his staff, so to speak, or let his guns get dusty.”
“We meet him as his friends are returning asking for his help in a battle,” he revealed.
In Warcraft canon, Medivh (seen above) is a powerful sorcerer who was corrupted early in life and played a key role in allowing the demonic hordes of The Burning Legion into the world of Azeroth. After being murdered by a friend, he returns from the grave later in the franchise’s continuity in order to help the remaining races unite against their common enemy.
Foster also confirmed that, while many of the creatures and characters of Warcraft will be created via performance-capture techniques, Medivh will be a live-action character in the film.
The actor didn’t stop there, though, offering up some thoughts on both Jones’ approach to adapting the franchise and the effects he’ll be using to bring the eternal war between orcs and humans to life on the screen.
“What’s exciting about Duncan Jones’ take on this video game is that it shows both sides of the war,” said Foster. “It shows both sides of a conflict, which is exciting to me. It’s not just a video game turned into a movie. It’s asking, hopefully, an important question of, where do we limit our compassion for what we consider to be the bad guys?”
Complimenting the work being done by effects studio Industrial Light & Magic for the film, Foster said ILM “pushes it to the next level.”
“It’s going to be one helluva 3D event,” he added.
Jones’ Warcraft is currently scheduled to hit theaters March 11, 2016.
