Warcraft was the 'death of 1,000 cuts' claims director Duncan Jones

'I’m equally proud and furious about Warcraft'

It’s no secret, Warcraft wasn’t the cinematic experience fans of the MMORPG were longing for. Instead, the result was an overlong, overstuffed CGI spectacular that made little-to-no sense on occasion.

In a candid interview with Thrillist, director Duncan Jones spoke about making the film and the difficulty of coming at the huge project as an independent filmmaker.

“I know that the movie is not perfect and I think one of the absolute frustrations of making a movie of this scale is that it is impossible, I think, to make a movie like this as an independent filmmaker,” he told the publication. “You have to find a way to squeeze it through the studio bureaucracies.”

One of the challenges he pinpoints is that making the smallest change has a butterfly effect on the rest of the film, with further changes being made to accommodate. As the film was made over such a lengthy period, these numbers small changes to lead to something missing from the final film.

“Trying to make a movie like Warcraft, and trying to do it in a unique way... you get killed by a death of 1,000 cuts,” he continued. “Not just editing cuts. It's little changes that seem really innocuous. As a filmmaker, the only way that I understand how to make a film is holistically.

“Every choice that I make, whether it is story or character or costume, all works together. When you make a little change it doesn't seem like a big deal. When you keep making those little changes, especially over three and a half years, suddenly you're basically spending all of your time trying to work out how to patch up what has been messed around with.”

Perhaps, most revealing of all, he admitted both his frustration and happiness with the final product: “I’m equally proud and furious about Warcraft. I love it. I spent so much time on it. I put all my heart into trying to make it work. Parts of it, I think, work but it also drives me crazy that I wasn’t able to push through everything that I knew needed to happen in order to make the film I knew it could be.”

A sequel to Warcraft is something Jones still hope happens, but with the first film having underwhelmed at the US box office, it is now an uncertainty. However, with a strong showing in China, things are still up in the air. There is yet to be an official announcement with guards a sequel.