There will be some of you looking at my article title this week and quietly suppressing a chuckle: Movies Like Warcraft Will Change US Cinema, you say? Don’t be daft, woman, the movie was awful. I hate to break it to you, but reviews at this point are largely academic, and as will become apparent, not only has this piece of cinema become a watershed, but is likely to become only the first of many titles which have no need for either critical or western European/American success. Effectively, this movie is already redefining how Hollywood ‘does’ cinema in certain markets going forward. Once upon a time, what mattered most was the Western audiences and their reaction/consumption of fairly traditional big-budget fare. However, in the last few years that traditional norm has begun to sublimate in Eastern markets, with Warcraft becoming a key release in steering where certain titles will be marketed going forward.
To understand why things have changed, we first need to begin with the rather unique manner in which Duncan Jones’ adaptation has been received in the established Western marketplace. I’ll grant you, there was a lot of issue taken with the film: however, Duncan Jones was nothing but honest and open with reviewers and fans alike, even occasionally casting aspersion on Universal’s often laughable efforts to market the title via social media. Those dedicated players of the game saw the movie regardless, but the ‘professional’ critics were, let’s face facts, not kind in the first instance. I’ll provide a snippet from the Rotten Tomatoes review website as an example of how badly this effort to translate the Orcs v Humans origin story to the big screen went down. ‘The Beginning’ garners an almost laughable 30% rating, from nearly 180 reviewers. How can you possibly take 4.2/10 as an indicator of this being anything other than pathetic?
Nestling right next to that 30% are 48,612 public reviews and counting. Yup, almost 50 THOUSAND PEOPLE have added their voices to the clamour, pushing the percentage rating of the movie almost up into the eighties, which is no mean feat at this point in the Summer blockbuster schedule. That’s a massive disparity, and it isn’t just based on the enthusiasm of a bunch of gamers. I’ve seen countless texts and Facebook messages from people who loved the film without knowing anything about Azeroth or Warcraft to begin with. It’s not just hyperbole: the movie works on two levels. I can play Spot the Game Reference all day and not get bored, whilst at the same time there’s a plot, plus real empathy with the cast. Most importantly Jones creates and maintains a believable and engrossing world. The problem with critics is that without a personal reference point to understand all this? It can be hard to understand or grasp what’s going on. If you’ve not seen it, you can read our spoiler-free review of the Warcraft Movie here.
British film critic Mark Kermode compared Warcraft to ‘John Carter’, Disney’s attempt to bring Edgar Rice Burroughs ‘Barsoom’ fantasy epic to the big screen. The parallels are quite noteworthy, especially as that film relies almost exclusively on CGI to create its backdrops. That release also received a critical mauling, but is considered by many as a successful adaptation of the source material, despite an almost $200m writedown by Disney over initial production costs. That’s not a problem Warcraft has needed to concern itself with however. The movie’s reviews pale into insignificance next to the commercial success, but not perhaps where the company had initially expected. The next reason why Warcraft redefines American Cinema is when everybody accepts that what matters in terms of certain title’s long-term success may no longer have anything to do with the US at all.
The Warcraft Movie has been, at best, lacklustre at the US box office. It made a disappointing $24.4m over its opening weekend, beaten by The Conjuring 2 (which made $40.4m and means this becomes the biggest opening for a horror film since the original.) Ten years ago this would be the end to the story, but not in today’s marketplace, because when you look at anywhere APART from the USA, Warcraft’s been an enormous success story. Nowhere is that more true than China, where the movie grossed a staggering $156m in only five days. To put this in context? ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ in China made $124m in the entirety of its theatrical run. Now my headline becomes slightly less ridiculous: it is entirely possible that Warcraft redefines American Cinema going forward, along with films such as Pacific Rim (which has been granted a sequel mostly in the back of popularity in the Chinese market.) When your audience is as vast and the potential as significant? There’s an awful lot on the table to consider moving forward. There’s additional MMO Games reporting on this Chinese success story here.
Jackie Chan, speaking at the Shanghai Film Festival in mid June, cited Warcraft as the first of many movies that will scare the American market: “If we can make a film that earns 10 billion RMB [$1.5 billion], then people from all over the world who study film will learn Chinese, instead of us learning English.” It is also important to point out that Legendary, the company behind the Warcraft Movie, may remain US led but is actually owned by a Chinese company (Wanda), after they completed a successful $3.5 billion takeover in January of this year. Most of the backing for the film was also permed from far east investors: in effect, this entire undertaking used Western know-how, labour, actors and post-production, all financed by the Chinese themselves. More importantly, Wanda is the biggest cinema owner in China: they also own Atletico Madrid football club plus AMC Entertainment, who happen to be the second-largest cinema chain in the USA.
This is a market that historically has shown little interest in ‘traditional’ cinematic fare, but now is having content tailored specifically for them. Chinese actors are also being added to existing US blockbusters in an attempt to increase their interest: most notably Li and Fan Bingbing (they’re not related) have turned up in X-Men: Days of Future Past, Iron Man 3 and Transformers: Age of Extinction. Some of these insertions are clumsy at best, but Warcraft does not suffer from such issues. The fantasy element of the plot is happily self-sustaining, and the obvious popularity for the game has done wonders for the profile of the movie. Undoubtedly these two factors have contributed to long term success, and a critical mauling in the Western world has absolutely no effect on this market at all.
There are already suggestions that a Warcraft sequel could effectively ignore a US Premiere, and be made specifically for the Chinese market. However, this does a disservice to the large number of fans and supporters of the game in other countries, especially in Russia and Europe. Warcraft redefines American Cinema by making it abundantly obvious that to be successful, there is now no need at all to focus your marketing and distribution on traditional markets at all. In fact, if you look at the areas where Activision Blizzard offered free games to new players, the US was hardly well served, the UK didn’t even get a look in… and efforts were concentrated on far East markets for the first time. Localisation is not an issue for Warcraft, after all, this is the company that happily embrace the possibilities of games in multiple languages. Anything is possible when you have the massive clout of Chinese cash and Activision Blizzard’s back end combined. Take a look at this fan-made version of the Warcraft Movie trailer here.
I realise full well suggesting that Warcraft redefines American Cinema is quite a lofty claim, but when you look at what has transpired in my small sector of the marketplace, the obvious love for both Jones and his efforts are unavoidable and actually very satisfying. He’s done the gaming community a massive service to boot, and when Michael Fassbender comes along with the Assassin’s Creed franchise later in the year it will no longer be a standing joke that ‘movies based on video games are rubbish.’ In fact, this is likely to be the foot in the door that stops people deciding that all you can do with a PC and a mouse is pretend your virtual world is worthy, but never expect it to become anything more significant than pixels.
What is going to quantify that redefinition even more is Jones’ love and respect for the source material, and the fact that his CGI does not remove the ‘humanity’ from characters who have for so very long not been judged on their ability to be different. The biggest strength above all in this success story is the fact that the end product not only recreates the feeling of the game, it allows those who don’t possess that a genuine opportunity to enter a world that before was only available to those capable of playing it. Mostly, in game to film adaptations, that door would only ever swing one way. Now, marketing departments, and the Transmedia loves inside Activision Blizzard’s own organisation have the opportunity to exploit niches and avenues that would never have been considered possible a year ago.
For me, however, this movie lays to rest once and for all, the notion that American Cinema is all that matters. If the Chinese market continues to grow, and there is no doubt that the potential exists, then there will need to be change. Nobody’s even considered global cinema in these terms before, and it will be a breath of fresh air that can only benefit total creativity in the long run. Just as long as it means we get more high-quality gaming adaptations and less movies like Adam Sandler’s utterly woeful ‘Pixels’?
I for one welcome our new Orc and Human overlords.
Related: Blizzard Entertainment, Column, Movie, Warcraft, Warcraft Movie, World of Warcraft, WoW Wednesday