7 Reasons Why Warcraft: The Beginning Will Actually Be The End Of The Franchise

It's rare these days to see a Hollywood blockbuster that isn't designed to be franchise-starting material. Rarely just movies in and of themselves, modern blockbusters often use a portion of their runtime to tease the viewer with the promise of a sequel. Warcraft: The Beginning is no exception: the climax of Duncan Jones' fantasy epic couldn't more blatantly set the groundwork for a follow-up. The film probably shouldn't be quite so sure about its chances of going to series, however. Warcraft, confidently subtitled The Beginning, is almost certainly not the start, but actually the end of a planned franchise. Yes, you read that right. After having seen the film, we really can't imagine a sequel going forward, and here are seven reasons why the Warcraft movie series is already dead in the water. 7) The Bad Critical Buzz Is Deafening It's often debated as to how much impact contemporary professional movie critics actually have. There's an argument now, in the age of the internet, that studios can bypass critics altogether by marketing their films straight to the source (eg: the viewer). That may account for why the Transformers movies continue to do so well, despite always getting trashed by film journalists. Other movies, however, like Batman V Superman, still can't quite manage to escape bad critical buzz. BvS, though still a financial success, was undoubtedly harmed by negative word of mouth, to the point that audiences are now turning on the DCEU and Warner Bros is re-thinking its entire strategy. Warcraft could suffer an even worse fate: the knives are out and already its reputation is poor, and the film is still a week away from US release. Like last year's Fantastic Four, the general air of failure swirling around Warcraft alone could put paid to the idea of any sequels. 6) Poor Projected Box Office The good news for Warcraft is that foreign business is good. Duncan Jones' film has earned almost $40 million before even hitting US shores. It's number one in many countries around the world, and is also one of the biggest film debuts in Russia ever, coming second only to Deadpool. The bad news is that the figures that still matter most are US ones, and the projected American box office doesn't look nearly good enough to justify any sequels. Early reports suggest Warcraft will take only around $25 million on its US opening, and though that may sound like a lot compared to the total worldwide gross so far, consider that X-Men: Apocalypse took $65 million on its opening US weekend (and that was deemed disappointing). Also take into account that Warcraft cost $160 million, and currently might not even be on track to break even. Universal probably won't be willing to fund a sequel for that reason alone. 5) Warcraft Fans Are Likely Going To Respond Badly Fans, god love em, can be a persistent bunch. So persistent, in fact, that their loyal, vocal support can resurrect TV shows (think Family Guy and Futurama), at long last put favorite characters on-screen (Deadpool) and even bring franchises back from the grave. It was fans who helped get 2013's Riddick made and who showed enough support to help get a sequel to box office flop Anchorman out of the gate. It's also fans who might just get a Dredd follow-up made. World of Warcraft, as everyone knows, has a wide and ardent fanbase. It's these people who Universal are probably counting on for some core support. With Warcraft's bad buzz and its poor box office chances though, the WoWers could save the day and demand a sequel, even when everyone else has turned their back. The only problem with this is that that audience is likely going to be disappointed, too. If even that important fanbase, the intended audience, is against Warcraft, the movie's sequel prospects become yet even more grim. 4) The First Movie Doesn't Even Successfully Set A Franchise Up There are plenty of arguments to be made about how Warcraft fails as a film. Just look to Rotten Tomatoes, the critics are already making those arguments in their droves. One key problem for Warcraft's franchise chances specifically, however, lies in how totally incompetently the Warcraft universe is established in the film. For "totally incompetently," read "hardly at all." The issue is that the movie doesn't set up the franchise that Universal seem to want. It's tonally inconsistent, there's no coherent sense of place or history, and by the end, some of the main characters we've accepted as our heroes have been killed off. If there is going to be a Warcraft sequel, someone is going to be faced with the daunting task of having to set the franchise up all over again, from the start, because the first movie couldn't even do that. 3) Universal Were (Reportedly) Unhappy Even With One Warcraft The bad buzz surrounding Warcraft isn't anything new. In fact, rumblings began over a year ago, when the film was being mysteriously continuously delayed and preview footage from the film nonplussed Comic-Con. Then came the rumors. It's rarely positive when a film is in post-production for 20 months, but sometimes that can be down to something as simple as a perfectionist filmmaker just tinkering to get the movie right, or the studio having moved the release date so as not to clash with another major blockbuster. With Warcraft, it seems Universal just didn't know what to do with/didn't like the movie enough to put it out right away. A leaked report in September of last year revealed that Universal considered Warcraft to be a "problem film," offering some explanation as to why they kept pushing back the release. If the studio didn't even like the one movie, why would they want to make another? 2) Duncan Jones Is Moving On To Other Projects One of the few vocal champions of Warcraft has been director and co-writer Duncan Jones himself, a keen WoWer and all-round nice guy who's been talking up his love of the film even in the face of harsh criticism. Even though many have dismissed it, Jones still seems to believe in Warcraft so much that his enthusiasm combined with his obvious talent might just be enough to convince Universal to have a crack at a sequel (albeit probably with a diminished budget). He's a rising star of a director; at this point, Jones could still demand a lot. Alas, anybody looking for more Warcraft from Duncan Jones is set to be disappointed. He's to return to sci-fi next with Mute, a long-gestating project that he probably had in mind all along. It seems making Warcraft could have just been a way for Jones to get his foot in the studio door, and get his passion projects - science fiction projects - off the ground without having to beg for money. So what about Warcraft? Well, no other director before Jones seemed to take the project seriously (and will less so now). Without him around, Universal may just scrap the series altogether. 1) The Movie Landscape Might Be Changing By all accounts, it's been a bad financial year for franchise movies. Comedy and animated sequels failing to match their predecessors, major sagas petering out at the box office, and even movies from big-hitters like the X-Men and Terminator series under-performing. It's laid out in more detail in this piece by The Playlist's Oliver Lyttelton, but to summarize what all this bad box office means: Hollywood may soon start getting cold feet regarding franchise movies after a year like this. Every few years the system takes stock and completely changes direction. Where once westerns and musicals were all the rage, the past few years it's been big-budget franchise movies of the fantasy/sci-fi variety. Only now, it appears audiences are losing interest in those. Even if Warcraft: The Beginning manages to do relatively well at the box office - which unlikely at this point - it might be that any proposed sequels end up falling by the wayside, victims to the changing blockbuster landscape.