By Warcraft had a rough go critically but was able to make money thanks to the foreign box office (particularly China). While a sequel seems unlikely, director Duncan Jones is still game to make the movie given all of the time and energy he put into the project.
In a candid interview with Thrillist, Jones said the following:
If there were an opportunity for us to make another film in the Warcraft universe I really feel like we did the hard work in the first movie as far as setting the table. I would love to capitalize on three and a half years of hard work and be able to have some fun in that world now that I’ve done the hard work. [So] who knows? Maybe I’m just being a masochist.
Jones is pretty frank throughout the interview, offering his thoughts on Warcraft‘s box office numbers, the realities of studio filmmaking, and the unpredictable taste of the audience.
Jones elaborated on the frustration of making a major studio film, and noted that he fought for many elements to be included in Warcraft, such as increasing audience empathy for the orcs and increasing their screentime.
I know that the movie is not perfect and I think one of the absolute frustrations of making a movie of this scale is that it is impossible, I think, to make a movie like this as an independent filmmaker. You have to find a way to squeeze it through the studio bureaucracies… Trying to make a movie like Warcraft, and trying to do it in a unique way… you get killed by a death of 1,000 cuts. Not just editing cuts. It’s little changes that seem really innocuous. As a filmmaker the only way that I understand how to make a film is holistically. Every choice that I make, whether it is story or character or costume, all works together. When you make a little change it doesn’t seem like a big deal. When you keep making those little changes, especially over three and a half years, suddenly you’re basically spending all of your time trying to work out how to patch up what has been messed around with.
As for a director’s cut of Warcraft, Jones says it’s not going to happen.
With a film like this, where there are so many visual effects, every concession that you make you lose those shots. They cease to exist because the effects work never gets done. Some of it’s not even at that stage. You go through a writing stage right up to the deadline of shooting the thing. [You lose] ideas in the writing process. Then sets change for whatever reason and notes come in. You’re changing things around a three-and-a-half-year process. You get these little changes which are constantly course-correcting you. So there is no possibility of there ever being a director’s cut. It’s purely in my head.
Jones has a lot more to say about Warcraft, and you can read the full Thrillist interview here. What do you think about a possible Warcraft 2? Is it feasible? Would you watch it? Let us know in the comments below.
[Thrillist via Collider]