Warcraft director Duncan Jones talks the limits of PG-13 and classic characters

During Blizzcon on Saturday, IGN attended a panel with director Duncan Jones and members of Blizzard discussing the upcoming WARCRAFT flick.

They started off by talking about how Jones as well as special effects supervisor, Bill Westonhofer (LIFE OF PI) both have played WORLD OF WARCRAFT since the BETA launch. When Jones read the first script for the film, he thought that it was too Alliance heavy so he took his concerns to Blizzard who understood that there should be a balance between both Alliance and Horde.

Jones wants to concentrate on “a war film that will follow the first encounters of the warring factions, with both sides of the conflict representing empathetic ideals featuring characters like Lothar and Durotan.” I think this is essential especially since players of WoW are allowed to choose between characters that are either good or evil. There are also fans who are hardcore Alliance and hardcore Horde.

Jones confirmed that some casting had been worked out but no names or additional details were given.

WARCRAFT will be shot in a style similar to AVATAR which includes human actors and mo-cap character interaction. It was described as “AVATAR meets GAME OF THRONES”. When asked about how the battle scenes would look, the Blizzard team made references to GLADIATOR and CHRONICLES OF NARNIA. For those who are big fans of the gaming series, be on the lookout for easter eggs. If you aren’t in that category, Jones said that he wants the film to be just as accessible to newbies.

When it comes to rating the flick, Jones said that it will probably be a PG-13 outing but added that “You can get away with some sh*t with PG-13.”

Check out some concept art that was shown below.