The Warcraft movie didn’t perform as well as Warner Bros. would have hoped, while to many, it was still in its own right, a great movie – it just didn’t seem to convert into numbers as well as it should have.
Duncan Jones has recently opened up about this, stating that a major factor could have been the major political issues plaguing the film.
“Warcraft was a political minefield as far as filmmaking goes”, the director said in an interview with American television channel Syfy. “And I think a lot of the rewriting in that, over the course of making the movie was really, really difficult and at times disheartening,” he added. “Just being forced to make changes and compromises just due to the politics and the nature of that film. So, that was a real heart-wrencher. But I’ve learned a lot and I’ve become more mature and able to deal with those kinds of situations because I’ve been through it now. But at the time, that felt pretty traumatic.”
Blizzard being very protective of its franchise didn’t make things easier for Jones either. “We were also working with Blizzard, who understandably were very careful about what happened with the movie because their bread and butter was the game Warcraft, which was bringing in a billion dollars a year for them”, the director said. “It was really a very active political landscape”.