On the heels of yesterday’s eye-popping visual effects breakdown, Legendary has served up the latest media dump for Warcraft: The Beginning, this time placing the key players of Duncan Jones’ fantasy epic alongside their CG counterparts.
In a similar fashion to Disney’s marketing for The Jungle Book, only with a heavier emphasis on facial capture technology, the gallery of headshots spotlight each of the key players lining the roster of Jones’ star-studded adaptation. From Toby Kebbell’s towering Orc his legion of Horde allies to the Lion of Azeroth, AKA Travis Fimmel’s Lothar who will be headlining the human Alliance in the name of Stormwind.
Elsewhere in the series of stills, you’ll find face-to-face comparisons of Ben Schnetzer as Khadgar, Ruth Negga as Lady Taria, Clancy Brown as Blackhand, Daniel Wu as Gul’Dan and Paula Patton’s Garona
Speaking about the creative process fuelling the near unprecedented visuals effects – not since Avatar have we seen such a seamless marriage of facial animation and CG wizardry – ILM visual effects supervisor Jeff White said that “the first shot that we delivered was a close-up on Durotan (Toby Kebbell). Very subtle, yet there were important moments there to bring the character to life. It was really our way to show all the filmmakers that, ‘Yes, we can pull these orcs off,’ and when they first saw it, they were floored.”
Warcraft: The Beginning brings together the worlds of Azeroth and Draenor in epic fashion, and you can look for Duncan Jones’ lavish blockbuster to storm into theaters on June 10 in the States. Those in the UK and other territories will be able to experience Legendary’s fantasy feature a little earlier when Warcraft opens on May 26.
