It was a big blow for World of Warcraft fans when Sam Raimi, one of the most recognizable and high-profile directors in the entertainment world, announced he wouldn’t be directing the World of Warcraft movie.   Three weeks ago, the Spider-Man series director told Crave Online at Comic-Con, “Actually, they don’t have me directing World of Warcraft anymore because when I took the (Oz: The Great and Powerful) job, they had to move on to another director.”  So much for being named director of the WoW film three years ago.

On the other hand, it looks like Activision and Blizzard still want this movie to become a reality.  World of Warcraft has been an international sensation since its release, and it wouldn’t hurt to see Hollywood’s finest try their hand at turning a best-selling PC game title into a big screen blockbuster.  Bobby Kotick, head of Activision Blizzard, told Variety earlier in the week that the film is “important to Blizzard (and) it’s important to me.”  He added that Blizzard staff members are “very excited about having a ‘World of Warcraft’ film. They’ve been very careful and thoughtful about the development process.”  But without Raimi in charge, who’s going to take over?

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been any replacement confirmed.  But the Variety report did state that Charles Leavitt, who had most notably written the script for The Seventh Son, will do the scriptwriting for the WoW film.  The Seventh Son, incidentally, is being produced by Legendary Entertainment, same company that will be in charge of WoW’s big-screen adaptation.  As Leavitt has a bit of experience writing fantasy film scripts (e.g. The Seventh Son), I expect him to be a good choice to do the same for World of Warcraft.  But with no replacement director named since Raimi was forced to back out of the project, it might be some time before Blizzard’s classic MMORPG comes alive in theaters.

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