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Blizzard vetoed the World of Warcraft film script, says director Sam Raimi

Raimi on the obstacles of the World of Warcraft film

Blizzard vetoed the script for the World of Warcraft movie penned by writer Robert Rodat and director Sam Raimi, and this is part of the reason why Raimi didn't stay on the project as director, according to an interview published on Vulture.

In the interview, Raimi explains how he was approached to make a World of Warcraft film, his desire to make his own original story for the movie, and how things fell through.

"...I read a screenplay they had that was written by the guys at [Warcraft developer] Blizzard, and it didn't quite work for me," Raimi says. "I told them I wanted to make my own original story with Robert, so we pitched it to Legendary [the production company] and they accepted it, and then we pitched it to Blizzard, and they had reservations, but they accepted it.

"Then Robert wrote the screenplay, and only once he was done did we realize that Blizzard had veto power, and we didn't know that. And they had never quite approved the original story we pitched them. Those reservations were their way of saying, 'We don't approve this story, and we want to go a different way,' so after we had spent nine months working on this thing, we basically had to start over."

According to Raimi, Rodat did start over, but by this point it had taken too long and Blizzard had run out of patience. "Honestly, I think it was mismanagement on their behalf, not to explain to us that the first story was vetoed long ago," Raimi says. "Why did they let us keep working on it? Were they afraid to tell me?"

The complete interview with Raimi where he talks about Oz the Great and Powerful and other films he worked on that never came to fruition can be read here.

Blizzard announced back in January that Source Code director Duncan Jones will be directing the World of Warcraft film.

We have reached out to Blizzard for comment.

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