Hello, everyone! It’s One Of Us’ weekly article series, “The Weekly Wrap-Up.” Covering everything from film announcements to comic books, “The Weekly Wrap-Up” ensures that the biggest stories of the week are analyzed and discussed by our team of writers. This week we cover the first look at the Duncan Jones film adaptation of World of Warcraft, a rerelease of a classic Capcom game and the return of the mastermind cannibal himself with our first official look at NBC’s Hannibal season 3.
First Image of Duncan Jones’ Warcraft Released
After years of secrecy, Universal and Legendary Pictures have finally released the first official image for their upcoming film adaptation of Warcraft , which features Robert Kazinzky as Orgrim Doomhammer. Directed and co-written by Duncan Jones (Moon), Warcraft is set in the fantasy world of Azeroth and follows the many different races that uncomfortably co-exist with one other.
Blizzard originally announced plans for a live-action Warcraft movie in May 2006 with Director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, Evil Dead) at the helm. However, Raimi left the project early in its development and it wasn’t until Jones joined the production that the long-struggling film adaptation of the fantasy series actually started to move forward. Jones is no stranger to genre-filmmaking, having written and directed critically acclaimed films such as Moon and Source Code. Though little is still known about the film’s plot or characters, Warcraft is said to be borrowing elements from Blizzard’s Warcraft: Orcs & Humans strategy game, and will explore the political and racial differences between the Human Alliance and Orc Horde, while offering plenty of massive battles between the two warring sides.
The first image of Kazinsky as Orgrim certainly looks cool, and it at least gives us an idea of what many of the orcs of Azeroth will look like in the film. Though my own experience with the original Warcraft strategy game series and the MMO are limited, I recognize that both iterations in the franchise have an extensive lore and history. If the film spends as much time showcasing its CGI characters as it does building the world of Warcraft , than Jones and Blizzard would have finally done the impossible and created the first video game movie that isn’t a poorly made cash-grab.
Warcraft will invade theaters June 10, 2016.
Cooties Trailer
After a few delays, it appears that Elijah Wood’s horror comedy production Cooties will finally be available to get our grubby little elementary zombie hands on. As the trailer reveals, the story follows a substitute teacher Clint Hadson (Wood) who’s most recent gig forces him to work at an isolated elementary school whose staff includes his childhood crush (Alison Pill) and a PE teacher who was once an all star athlete (Rainn Wilson). During the course of Hadson’s first day, the student body becomes infected with a mysterious virus that they contract by eating chicken nuggets which turns them into zombie-like versions of themselves. Now, it’s up to the staff to save the world from these snot nosed little bastards… who just so happen to be zombies.
I remember first hearing about Cooties when it started filming in 2013. It sounded like an inventive little horror comedy that could result in some big laughs, especially with a cast that included Wood, Wilson and Jack McBrayer. Plus, the premise of teachers fighting off child zombies is full of darkly comedic potential. Seeing the trailer, it pretty much confirmed those expectation, particularly in regards to Rainn Wilson who owns many of the trailer’s more hilarious comedic bits. If anything makes me trepidations about the film’s potential, it’s the fact that the film was delayed due to a desire to reshoot the ending, which could easily backfire as it often has on films with new endings. Still, this will be one to look out for when it arrives in theaters and VOD September 18th.
Capcom Concentrating on HD-Remakes
Those who have been paying close attention to this generation of gaming consoles are well aware of the countless HD re-releases and remakes by many of the gaming industry’s biggest publishers and developers. Capcom, one of Japan’s largest and most renowned gaming companies, has been steadily releasing a number of their original titles on the PS4 and the Xbox One for some time. Announced via their Q&A financial report, Capcom has pledged to further develop and produce HD remakes of their older games for the foreseeable future.
“HD remasters of our catalog hit titles will be one of our key business activities. Overseas, it is becoming difficult to sell these lower-priced and re-mastered titles at stores because of the declining number of stores and sales area limitations. Therefore, we started aggressive digital download sales activities.”
In all honesty, this news doesn’t come as a surprise. While Capcom has played a huge role in shaping the gaming industry, producing many popular titles including Resident Evil, Mega Man, Dead Rising and Street Fighter, the publisher has seen declining sales for the last several years. The fact that they would turn to making visually improved versions of their most critically acclaimed games makes sense financially. Cost and development time would be significantly less, and they can bank on gamers’ sense of nostalgia.
Hannibal Season 3 First Look
Hannibal is one of the most surprisingly well crafted shows on TV. NBC released a sneak peek for the series’ third season, which will air start airing June 4th. After the exhilarating cliffhanger from the previous season, it looks like Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) will not only have to face off against his titular nemesis (Mads Mikkelsen) and his partner in crime/former psychiatrist Dr. Bedellia Du Maurier (Gillian Anderson). Along with the way, he’ll have to contend with the scarred meat packing dynasty heir Mason Verger (Joe Anderson) and a mysterious new serial killer calling himself The Tooth Fairy (Richard Armitage).
Clearly, Bryan Fuller’s series plays around with Thomas Harris’ novels, blending together elements from the novels Red Dragon and Hannibal as well as following original elements they introduced in the previous seasons. So far they’ve done an excellent job of molding the elements of the series into a new mold, particularly with the relationship between Will and Hannibal as well as the Mason Verger character as played last season by Michael Pitt. Joe Anderson replacing him worries me on some level, but the other new cast members show a lot of promise. In particular, I’m curious to see Richard Armitage take up the role of Francis Dolarhyde, a role previously played by Tom Noonan in Manhunter and Ralph Fiennes in Red Dragon. It’s a layered version of a seemingly familiar serial killer presence, sort of a take on Norman Bates in Psycho II trying to fight his psychotic urges while in a romantic relationship. Hopefully they introduce him well, but not in a way that takes from the relationships they’ve already built. Also hope there’s way more of those disturbingly delicious meals.
