It was a little over a year ago that a feature film version of the highly successful MMORPG, World of Warcraft was announced. Now, Kotaku is reporting from the Blizzcon 07 that Paul Sams and Chris Metzen from Blizzard Entertainment along with the chief creative officer from Legendary Pictures hosted a panel event to field questions from fans and provide some updates about the film. While details were scarce, there were a few pieces of information for the die-hard fans attending the event.

The fantasy game has been around since 1994, and today counts nine million players worldwide, so you can imagine the pressure is on to please fans; nobody wants to be the guy who screws up one of the most popular game franchises in history. No mention was made of a director, but they did confirm that the film was going to be live action but they had yet to decide just how much CGI was going to be involved. Considering the success Legendary had with 300, you couldn't blame them for wanting to give the green screen another go.

Kotaku also reports Metzen confirmed that "Warcraft is still in the scripting process, but that they have something that they're happy with. Further details were kept under wraps but Metzen told the crowd it would take place about a year before the events of World of Warcraft. Metzen was also quoted as saying that the script will be "principally told from the Alliance perspective." Legendary is still aiming for a 2009 release date, so stay tuned for any updates as they come our way.

I posted earlier today on Joystiq that a new TV commercial for the role-playing game World of Warcraft hit the airwaves on Monday, which of course means it hit YouTube about .0815 seconds later. I'm waiting for the day that things come out on YouTube before they reach TV or the big screen. YouTube will become self-aware and telepathic and rule the world one day. You think Terminator was just a movie? SkyNet is YouTube, silly rabbit.

Oh, look ... we've veered back on-topic. This commercial features footage from Office Space with everyone's favorite cubicle-slacker Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) playing WoW while Bill Lundbergh (Gary Cole) tries to talk to him about TPS reports. Originally in the scene, Peter was playing Tetris, but they've stuck this footage in pretty seamlessly. Look how they've even littered his desk with the Warcraft box and game discs.

The ad works here because Office Space isn't generally considered a "classic", but how long until companies really screw up something that Cinemaniacs will cry sacrilege over? Come to think of it, it's already happened several times. We've had Gene Kelly selling Volkswagens, Steve McQueen pushing Mustangs, and Elton John plugging Diet Coke with Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Louis Armstrong. The recent Gap commercial starring Audrey Hepburn was funky and fun, but I found myself wondering what she'd think about it. It's hard to imagine that she would be thrilled. Will Apple use Citizen Kane to sell iPods? Matthew Broderick hawking new computers in WarGames? Okay, that last one probably wouldn't really bother me, but when does it end? At what point is too much just too much?


Check out these ads after the jump and let us know what you think.

With the enormous built in audience I suppose it was only a matter of time ... but do we REALLY need a movie based on the MMORPG World of Warcraft? Warner Brothers, through their Legendary Pictures arm will team up with Blizzard to produce this monstrosity based on the online fantasy world populated by six or so million users. No plot has been announced yet, as far as I can discover. WoW will become the latest in a rush of films trying to break through the negative stigma attached to film projects based on video games -- and it's nearly unrivaled video game audience may go a long way towards helping that goal.

The movie will undoubtedly focus around a grand fantasy adventure (I'm sorry, "quest") of some sort. Heaven only knows the universe is deep enough and rich enough to support any number of interesting/exciting fantasy stories; if a first film is successful the universe could certainly support plenty of sequels. However, I can't help but envision a movie full of cliched fantasy archetypal characters with names like Zathanditir and F'kkh'lyln repeatedly shouting poorly phrased insults at each other or getting "married" to people they've never actually met. Sometimes both simultaneously. If our lead characters ever manage to stop fighting with each other (the official movie announcement refers to this as "forming deep social relationships") they will then go out and kill a bunch of monsters so they can brag about how awesome they are now and tell their friends about the sweet new ring/hat/sword they just obtained.

It's probably a good thing I'm not in charge of making this movie, isn't it?

Disclaimer: Many of my good friends play MMORPGs, and I know they're quite enjoyable games. I do the occasional RPG myself, although I don't get into MMORPGs. I make fun of you because I love you. Really.