Warcraft Movie Update

Collider has a good long interview with Sam Raimi on the red carpet at the Saturn Awards. Here's what matters most, though: He talks Warcraft, and I believe for the first time. Raimi was announced as the director of the highly anticipated video game film last year, but it was believed at the time it would have to wait until after Spider-Man 4 and possibly even another Evil Dead movie (which I doubt will ever happen).

"We're still working on the story right now," Raimi confirmed. "We've got a 40-page document that needs a lot more work, but every draft that we do with Robert Rodat gets better and better." The difficulty, in my mind, is paring down something that, by design, is supposed to be remarkably expansive. It's part of the reason video game movies don't work well -- what fun is a game that only lasts 90 minutes?

"We're finding the characters and through the characters we're finding the story. There's no real angle on it - we're trying to create interesting characters that can live in the World of Warcraft, as though you are in the game itself, in one, or two, or three of those environments, and see the interaction with those great mythical, iconic characters."

Raimi doesn't give a timeline, but I think it's safe to say Oz will come first if Robert Downey, Jr. jumps aboard as expected. His involvement is more important to Disney than Raimi's, so it'll be on his schedule, more than likely. And look, the guy just said the script is in no way ready to proceed, and that's just the first shoe to drop; Raimi still has to figure out how to create a film landscape that captures the visuals of the game.

"I love the visual world that the guys at Blizzard have created. Incredibly engrossing and terrifying and exciting," Raimi told Collider. "I like their use of scale and the giant monsters they have. I love the different landscapes that your character can move through." That won't be easy to bring to life, but I think it's worth the effort.