Legendary Pictures unveiled new looks at their upcoming slate of films, including Duncan Jones' WARCRAFT, Guillermo Del Toro's CRIMSON PEAK, and even a look at KRAMPUS (from the Weta booth) during their annual Comic Con unveiling and interactive experience. To kick things off, Legendary showed off displays for both the Horde and Alliance side of the WARCRAFT film, showing off an epic, highly-detailed life-sized Orgrim and a heroic, battle-ready life-sized King Llane, along with weapons and assorted props.
Take a look below:
In addition to the life-sized statues and props, Legendary also showed off it's latest VR tech, utilizing new cardboard viewers that allow you to watch a full on VR experience from your smartphone. Here's the lowdown:
Legendary presents three exclusive VR experiences inspired by some of there most highly anticipated new films. Warcraft: Skies of Azeroth gives fans a virtual ride on the back of a gryphon; Beware Crimson Peak offers fans a virtual close encounter with the haunting ghosts of Allerdale Hall, inspired by Guillermo Del Toro’s new film, Crimson Peak; and Pacific Rim: Jaeger Pilot offers fans the virtual experience of piloting a 250-storey mech in action.
The cool thing about this is that you can download these RIGHT NOW from iTunes for both iOS and Android devices and experience them for yourself, minus the cardboard viewer. The WARCRAFT and CRIMSON PEAK VR's are especially cool. DOWNLOAD THE APP RIGHT HERE.
We then spoke to director Duncan Jones, where he talked about the long-in-the-making WARCRAFT, including the challenges he faced, how he hopes to make the film accessible to both gaming and non-gaming audiences, whether he'd like to continue with more WARCRAFT films and a small little "sci-fi indie" he'd like to shoot in the meantime. Below are the highlights (and full video below for the full interview).
On the the story of WARCRAFT:
What I suggested was, look, what makes WARCRAFT on a game side work so well is that players choose to be on either side and they tell the story from their perspective, so you have to be able to empathize with both sides. And my pitch was, Look, let’s tell a war story where you show heroes on both sides and how they come into conflict because of a situation that they can’t find a way to avoid. So, it really is a war story. This could not be based on WARCRAFT. I think the fundamentals that make it work on a story level come out of something that’s not dependent on the game it just happens to fit beautifully with what the game is.
On making the film accessible to both gaming and non-gaming audiences:
The film is designed to be for an audience who may not have played the game or may know nothing about the game. It’s a film and it works in its own right…I think the absolute key ingredient right from the start was to work as closely with Blizzard as we could…making sure that we kept the DNA of what made the game work and stuck to the law as much as we could. Now, there are always gonna be moments where we’re gonna have to take license to make things work in a linear narrative for the duration of a film, but we have done our absolute best, and I think we’ve been very successful in keeping to the law of WARCRAFT and at the same time making it accessible for people who don’t know anything about WARCRAFT.
On whether or not he'd like to make more WARCRAFT films, including a possible trilogy:
I really hope that the audience is gonna be out there and is gonna come out and support this film. I would love to get to do another one. There’s 11 months between now and when this film comes out. I’m hoping to sneak in a little indie/sci-fi thing before this comes out…If we had the chance to do a trilogy and do three films, I think we know, in rough blocks, what this-what those three movies would be. It works as a standalone. It would absolutely lend itself to a continuing story for three films, because that’s how we kinda planned it out.
On what his "sci-fi indie" he'd like to make:
My DON QUIXOTE, my sci-fi film I’ve been trying to make for 10 years at least, called MUTE, I’m hoping to do that, so we’ll see if I can make that happen.
Lastly, Legendary announced the release of three all-new Mondo posters for CRIMSON PEAK, that would be available at SDCC at the Mondo booth. You can check 'em out below!
That's not the last we'll be hearing of Legendary, as their panel is in Hall H on Saturday and we will be there to cover the event and share with you. We're most certainly looking forward to a closer look at WARCRAFT, as it feels like the most promising event on the studio's current slate. Check back on Saturday for our coverage!
CRIMSON PEAK starts haunting theaters on October 16, 2015 and WARCRAFT smashes into theaters on June 10, 2016.