The first good video game adaptation still eludes us, but hopes are very high for Moon director Duncan Jones’ massive Warcraft movie. While the film wrapped production last year, the extensive visual effects involved (done by ILM) means the post-production process is quite long, so it’s understandable that Warcraft‘s release is still over a year away. However, Jones is deep in the edit on the at the moment, and he recently spoke a bit about the film and its equal focus on humans and orc, revealing that the movie opens with the two races meeting each other for the first time. He also spoke briefly about hopes to jump start a franchise with this first film. Read on after the jump.

Speaking with Chinese movie news site Mtime (via ManMadeMovies), Jones revealed that the Warcraft movie opens with Orcs and Humans meeting (forgive the sometimes odd translation):

“From the moment I first talked to Blizzard, the plan was to start our film with the first time Orcs met Humans. First contact! I think that for a world with so much newness to explain, this was a wise choice, especially when so many people in our audience may not know anything about Warcraft… it was important that some of our characters would be seeing the world fresh as well, and that the audience could see the situation through their eyes.”

Jones went on to reiterate what was clear from our brief look at the film at Comic-Con last year, which is that the orcs and humans are equally important to the story:

“A Warcraft film should not be about a good race of humans battling an evil race of orcs! Warcraft should be about heroes on both sides trying to avoid a conflict, when villains leave them no choice.”

Regarding the effects, Jones said that visual effects supervisor Bill Westenhoffer (who won an Oscar for Life of Pi) and ILM’s Jeff White (who was responsible for overseeing Hulk in The Avengers) are heading up the team, while composer Ramin Djawadi (Game of Thrones, Pacific Rim) is currently working on the score.

As for more Warcraft in the future, Jones is certainly hopeful that this film isn’t the end of the road:

“Peter Jackson did a magnificent job of ‘setting the table’ for Tolkein’s universe with his first Lord of the Rings film. I know that my job in this first film is to establish certain characters, places and culture while telling a story that a broad audience can be excited by! Hopefully, if I have done my job right, people will want to know and see more! There is certainly plenty more to tell! …I would love to be part of that process of expanding on the lore that makes up Warcraft, but it will all depend on what you, the audience, think of our first film!”

But we’ve still got a ways to go before we see the first film, though the specific characters were recently revealed at BlizzCon. Warcraft is slated to open in theaters on March 11, 2016.