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Warcraft was a political minefield as far as filmmaking goes. And I think a lot of the rewriting in that, over the course of making the movie was really, really difficult and at times disheartening. Just being forced to make changes and compromises just due to the politics and the nature of that film. So, that was a real heart-wrencher. But I've learned a lot and I've become more mature and able to deal with those kinds of situations because I've been through it now. But at the time, that felt pretty traumatic.



It was mainly studio politics. You know, Legendary had an incredibly turbulent period while we were making Warcraft. They were associated with Warner Bros. They left Warner Bros. and joined Universal. They were sold to Wanda, this Chinese conglomerate. They lost or replaced a number of their producing staff halfway through our movie.



And at the same time as all of that, we were also working with Blizzard, who understandably were very careful about what happened with the movie because their bread and butter was the game Warcraft, which was bringing in a billion dollars a year for them. So, whatever we did with the movie was likely to be small potatoes compared to how important the game was for them. So it was really a very active political landscape.



I think I learned a lot from that experience and if I ever put myself in that situation again, even though I went into it eyes open, I'm a lot wiser now.

I would say one of the things about Warcraft is that we got to build some phenomenal, huge film sets and one of them was the exterior of the city of Stormwind. We built this huge chunk of the town.



I had had the good fortune growing up to be on the set of the movie Labyrinth, where they had this set for Goblin Town that they'd built. As a boy, I got a chance to kind of wander around that and it had such an impact on me. And there was also this other film that Julien Temple directed, called Absolute Beginners and they built this whole section of Soho in London in — I guess it would have been the 1950s. And seeing those big movie sets and being able to walk around on them and then finally having a set of that scale and size that was part of my movie. I think that was just an incredible experience.

“I don’t know,” Jones admitted. “And it is such a strange situation. Because Chris Metzen from Blizzard and I are both really proud of ‘Warcraft.’ I think we both feel like we made something that was ambitious and true to what ‘Warcraft’ was.”



“It is mainly people who played ‘Warcraft’ who watched the movie and said you need to know about the law to understand the movie. But we both know loads of people that didn’t know about the game but loved the film.”



“It is not as geeky as people think. If you go in there with an open mind it is just a big fun fantasy film. But for whatever reason the numbers in the US weren’t good. But the numbers outside of the US were great.”



“It is really tricky to know if a sequel is going to get made. Nothing has been said. I am still hoping there is a chance. I don’t know what is going to happen. I hope we get the chance. It would be really fun.”

CS: You’ve spoken of your experience making “Warcraft” as being a “death by a thousand cuts,” so if you were to take on another big franchise tentpole type film what would be the ideal circumstances for you to sign on?



Jones: For studio films in general or “Warcraft” in particular?



CS: Just another big tentpole in that vein.



Jones: For another tentpole, if they were pre-existing franchises I don’t think I’d want to do them. If it’s something they want to become a franchise but is new I would obviously be more interested. Part of the enjoyment for me is trying to find a way to create and realize something from scratch. That part of it I would be more interested in. As far as doing a big studio film, I think more communication upfront about what it is we hope the project will be and agreeing on that upfront. “Warcraft” was a unique circumstance with no way around it. Too many voices, only because that was the nature of “Warcraft.” Blizzard are a company making a billion dollars a year just off the games. The movie was small potatoes for them. It really wasn’t their priority. The game is how they pay their employees, not the movie. So for them the movie really had to serve the game, as opposed to the game and the film being separate things. Then there were also multiple studios, Legendary were originally part of Warner Bros. and then moved to Universal. Then Legendary itself was bought by Wanda from China, there were producers changing during the course of the film. It was a very messy political situation. I would hope that even if I did another studio film it wouldn’t be as fluctuating as that one was.