Former Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick believes Universal’s 2016 adaptation of Activision Blizzard’s Warcraft was “one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.”
In a candid interview on Grit, Kotick — who led Activision Blizzard for 32 years before stepping down in December 2023 — suggested the movie also impacted the development of World of Warcraft as the film was a “distraction” to the team and one of the reasons veteran designer Chris Metzen left the company in 2016.
“Chris Metzen was — and is, to me — the heart and soul of creativity of the company,” Kotick said.
“He left, got burnt out. They made World of Warcraft the movie, which I thought was a terrible idea [but] they had signed the deal before [Activision] had owned the company.
“It took a lot of resources and distracted [developers at Blizzard],” Kotick added. “You think about all these people who make video games for a living, and now they have the chance [to], like, make a movie. They’re helping with the casting, and they’re on the set, and… it’s just a huge distraction.
“Our expansions were late. You know, patches weren’t getting done on time. And the movie was terr— it was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.”
While fans of the Warcraft movie may never get a sequel, in 2020 director Duncan Jones opened up about his cancelled plans for a trilogy. The overall arc for the trilogy would have seen “the fulfilling of Durotan’s promise to give his people a new home,” according to Jones.
While Warcraft underperformed in North America, grossing a measly $47 million domestically, it went on to temporarily become the most successful video game adaptation of all-time internationally, largely due to its popularity in China. Overall, Warcraft brought in $439 million for Legendary Pictures, which largely deemed it a failure after not breaking even on its massive budget.
Claiming Metzen “took it very personally” before he left to start a boardgame company, Kotick added that he eventually “begged” the designer to return on a consultancy basis.
However, Metzen was unimpressed by plans for the next two expansions, suggesting they needed to be “redone” entirely.
Asked if he spoke to Metzen much after his return to Blizzard, Kotick said: “Hardly ever. What am I going to tell Chris Metzen about game design, you know? I just wanted him to do his thing.
“The last expansion, he had his fingertips all over it. It’s excellent. The next one is going to be great.”
That last expansion certainly impressed us, too, securing a 9/10 in our World of Warcraft The War Within review. We called it “the best World of Warcraft has been on all fronts in many years, making this two-decade-old MMO feel fresh and thrilling again.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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