Now that Duncan Jones’ Warcraft: The Beginning is in the can, teetering on the edge of its international bow, fans are waiting with bated breath for the director’s lavish rendition of Azeroth to grace the silver screen.
How exactly Jones’ tentpole pans out at the box office is another question entirely, but in a bid to draw attention to the film’s jaw-dropping visuals effects, Legendary has rolled out an all-new featurette for Warcraft, showcasing the ways in which the Orcs were brought to life by the technical wizards at Industrial Light & Magic.
By using a combination of motion and facial capture, the VFX team “broke some ground” with regards to the almost unprecedented level of detail on display. Touching base on the creative process, 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.”
Subtly and nuance will be paramount if Warcraft: The Beginning really is to nurture a bond between its audience and Kebbell’s towering Orc and the remainder of the Horde. On the other end of the battle lines, Travis Fimmel will take point as Lothar (AKA the Lion of Azeroth) who rises up for those in Stormwind.
Elsewhere, Jones has assembled quite the all-star cast to headline his summer blockbuster, including Dominic Cooper as King Llane Wrynn, Ben Foster as Medivh, Ben Schnetzer as Khadgar, Ruth Negga as Lady Taria, Clancy Brown as Blackhand, Daniel Wu as Gul’Dan and Paula Patton’s Garona.
Warcraft: The Beginning storms into theaters in North America on June 10. Those in the UK and a handful of other countries will be able to catch Duncan Jones’ live-action rendition of Blizzard’s behemoth on May 26.
