Raimi Grabs Saving Private Ryan Scribe For Warcraft

Now this is some nerd news right up my alley: Sam Raimi, the director of the Spiderman films and Army of Darkness, has hired Robert Rodat, the writer of Saving Private Ryan and The Patriot, to draft his World of Warcraft film. On IMDb, it’s simply being called Warcraft, which seems to work just as well.

There’s a lot to root for with this project. Raimi is incredibly talented, and seeing him return to a fantasy/horror genre is great news — he’s the man who got me into film in the first place with The Evil Dead. The fact that he’s taken up Warcraft is even better: it’s a videogame property that allows him the breathing room to have a little fun without treading on the toes of Lord of the Rings. The franchise is his oyster, and I can think of a hundred ways that his dynamic and fluid style will lend itself to the property.

Lastly, to know that a talented (and underutilized) writer such as Rodat will be behind the film gives me hope that Raimi’s headed back in the right direction after Spiderman 3. Raimi noted that he wants the film “to be really faithful to the game … we would have our writer, Robert Rodat, really craft an original story within that world that feels like a World of Warcraft adventure. Only obviously it’s very different ’cause it’s expanded and translated into the world of a motion picture.”

Sounds excellent to me. Raimi’s currently at work on Spiderman 4 concurrently with this film.