Blizzard’s James Waugh on Warcraft: Bonds of Brotherhood

Today sees the release of Legendary Pictures’ Warcraft film, an adaptation of one of the most popular video game franchises of all time and generally expected to win a competitive box office weekend.

Earlier this week, fans who wanted some insight into the human characters at the center of Warcraft could get it by picking up Warcraft: Bonds of Brotherhood, an original graphic novel from Legendary Comics.

Blizzard’s Waugh joined ComicBook.com to discuss the project, which is on sale at comic shops and on comiXology now.

So beyond just working on the comic, what do you do at Blizzard?

I’m the Director of Story and Creative Development at Blizzard. Chris Metzen is essentially the head of story at Blizzard. If you watch Game of Thrones, I’m the hand of Chris. I oversee a group called Creative Development which is really focused on our franchise building, our comics, our short films, the world … the kind of direction of the franchises and we kind of hold the torch to Blizzard’s story of the worlds.

Was this just kind of part of the parcel when you guys were talking to Legendary? Was this always part of the pitch, or was this something that developed as the movie got closer, and you realized, “Oh, here’s a really cool opportunity?”

No, it wasn’t actually part of it. It’s something that definitely came about later. It’s funny, some of the ideas for this comic actually found themselves developed a year before the comic was even an idea. When we were doing a script development with Chuck Lovett and Atlas and Legendary.

During one of the earlier drops of the film, there was this Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark opening where our three heroes, our human heroes from the movie, Llane, Medivh and Lothar made their way into this ancient troll lair and ended up fighting this troll warlord that was using this crazy magic. We always loved it, because it was really focused on those characters when they were young. It really focused on the friendship aspect of their dynamic and how they were really, truly brothers in many ways. I think the characters that you end up seeing in the movie or fifteen years later and the tolls of their life are set in. Something has definitely happened in their friendship and we don’t really know why.

We liked the idea that there was this great story of when they were really close, and when they were heroes. Those ideas that were developed in that early draft of the script ended up permeating a lot of the back story that you feel throughout the movie. For example, there’s a statue to Medivh in Stormwind, and that statue you see made in this comic, because of the events of this comic they refer back to it a bit. That was in an early draft of the script. Ultimately, that didn’t make it into the next incarnation of the script, when Duncan Jones came on. He had a really stabby take and really smart take on how to revise the script and that was to bring the Orcs more forward, and to make them an equal weighted character to humans.

One of the earlier takes of the script was from a more human perspective of the events and we loved that obviously, because first off, no one has done that before and second off, that feel is like Warcraft to us. The Orcs aren’t the bad guys, the humans aren’t the good guys. It’s a very balanced world of a lot of gray. Through that process, the troll storyline really fell into the subtext of the events of the movie, but that story was always there and to us it was a story that always kind of provided a foundational touch point to us, and we had it in our back story of the film in continuity. It just so happened that once the film was green lit, I think Robert Napton at Legendary called and said, “Listen, we do these comics. We do a lot of these comics. Would you guys be interested in … “

Chris and myself and everybody here are pretty much big comic nerds at a certain level. We all read an awful lot and we all love the medium and we’ve dabbled our share of doing World of Warcraft comics over the years and Starcraft comics. We thought this would be a great opportunity to get out that story that we thought was a great summary or great really look at the relationship of these characters in the movie, and Legendary loved the idea and so from that point on, Chris wrote up a treatment based on events that we saw and what happened and how Medivh ended up encountering Lothar for the first time and how the siege of Stormwind happened. We had that direction, Legendary loved it, the film makers loved it, because it really helped contextualize what was going to happen in the movie.

We brought on Paul Cornell to write it, and Paul was an interesting writer whose worked we liked a long time. We saw the film early on and really that there was a lot of heart and soul in it and that these were the characters that he could relate to and he could really see being, you know, see the audiences connect to emotionally. He did the draft, brought a very unique perspective to our world and we liked it an awful lot and the rest is history.

I’m not a gamer. I loved Warcraft as a kid but haven’t played it since the very first game. Is there anything you need to know going into this comic that will help you kind of contextualize it?

No, I don’t think so. I think both of them stand on their own in many ways. I think, look, when we got to a point in the movie’s development. Sam Raimi was initially on the project to do the movie. Inevitably Sam left to do another project, and we were in a place of really figuring out what story we wanted to tell, and we ended up working with Legendary and Atlas and the idea was, okay, maybe trying to World of Warcraft, this big story with so many races and so many quest lines full of history isn’t going to give us the best movie.

It’s just so much to take in, and we decided to place a camera early on to the games you played, Warcraft. It’s really … that’s really the heart and soul of the franchises, alliance versus horde, orc versus human. We thought if that film works, then audiences can graduate if there are more films to the kind of bigger concepts and wider world that World of Warcraft inevitably becomes.

For the movie, I don’t think you need anything but a love for fantasy movies or a love for good adventure film. For the comic, I’d say the same thing. I think if you’re someone who’s interested in fantasy comics or fantasy films, I think the comic is pretty self-explanatory and it brings you into our IP in a very elegant way. I think it would be a big misstep if either of these things were something you needed to be briefed on before you dived in. Part of this film of continuity idea is we want it to be accessible to people. We don’t want it to be burdened down by just the fact of having 20 plus years of video game lore built, you know? I think this gives an opportunity to bring a lot of new people to the franchise we love and care about. We wanted to keep it very accessible.

You talked quite a bit about the kind of context of it and so we kind of got a bit in. What is your kind of elevator pitch for the story itself? Is this … what is it that happens when Llane, Lothar and Medivh actually meet for the first time?

Okay, so just to clarify, the comic isn’t the story of when they meet for the first time. The comic really focuses on the friendship that’s already really involved between them. They are all each at this sort of pivotal point of their life where Medivh has just become the guardian. This all powerful wizard who’s charged with defending Azeroth. He’s dealing with the weight of that burden. Lothar is dealing with the fact that he has a pregnant wife and he’s about to become a father. His life’s going to change in a very big way. Llane is in a place where he’s a young prince who doesn’t feel he’s necessarily respected by his father yet, or isn’t necessary in a place where he’s seen as the heir apparent in a way that you’ll see in the movie.

Really, this comic is the crucible of events that changes these three men forever through facing off the trolls, and the trolls ultimately siege Stormwind. By the end of it, each of them are changed I different ways and the events of this troll war that happens forced them to change. Medivh starts exploring new magics that end up taking a great toll on him. That kind of presents itself in the movie. Llane, because of his rash actions at the start of the movie, ends up seeing the dire consequences of that. By the time we see him in the film, he’s a very calm, calculated leader who’s very thoughtful. Lothar has to deal with the tragedy of losing his wife and being a single parent.

The events that happen in this comic really set the stage for the events that happen in the movie in many ways even though it’s fifteen years prior. It’s these fundamental events that change the course of history.

Did you guys find yourself seeding the larger world or the sequels in the graphic novel or in the movie or is that something where you’re just kind of like, well, we’re going to wait and see how it works and then we’re going to develop those later?

You know, I don’t think they’re seeded in the graphic novel. I think the graphic novel is really seeding ideas that will lead in to the movie. I’d say the movie is definitely written and realized from a perspective that it is a beginning of hopefully more. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t successfully wrap up and really deal with the crisis.

There is a heroic kind of Star Wars-like ending to it, but there are a lot of threads that are left open and there are a lot of stories that definitely could find themselves in other films and be realized in other films. Yeah, I mean, one of the benefits of working from Warcraft 1, even though it’s changed greatly for the cinematic expression is there is a clear beginning, middle and an end of that story, but there is also a lot left that leads into Warcraft 2, Warcraft 3 et cetera. All of that is seeded in this film. I mean, as far of World of Warcraft, this is more fundamental … this is more of the beginning of all that.

We seed important character in this film that are actually in World of Warcraft.

One of the things that struck me is the book looks great. If you handed it to me without title treatment, I don’t know that I would necessary think, “Oh, that’s Warcraft,” because there’s such a kind of diverse group of artists working in different styles.

Right.

There’s obviously up sides and down sides to that, but as somebody from Blizzard who like, you cultivated a specific look for Warcraft. When you were looking at the artists, were you sitting there going like, who could best represent our brand, or was it a matter of this is how to make the book look really damn good so we’re going to go with it and we’ll trust that it feels enough like reading it that people are going to be on board?

I think it’s a little bit of the latter. We were very heavily involved in the story development. Legendary comics was very involved in the art development. We were partners. They sent us everything, and one of things that was clear to us and we were more than understanding about is the movie, also the certain translation of how our characters look in the style of World of Warcraft.

You look at like our comics, our game comics, you look at our game, it’s very stylized. Huge shoulder pads, massive swords, things that just proportionately don’t necessarily work when translating to an actually human actor who has to carry that stuff. One of our … our VP of Art & Cinematic Development, Nick Carpenter, worked really closely with Duncan, finding a way to realize the filmic realization of that weird stylization if you know what I mean. It was …

The movie feels like Warcraft but it’s a more plausible Warcraft. The armor is still big shoulder pads but feels like it’s plausible. I think the comic art is more reflective of the movie rendition of these characters and of our world and I think we’re more than okay with that. It is the filmic expression. So now, it doesn’t 100% look like World of Warcraft, but we’re definitely okay with that. It looks like the Warcraft movie.

Is there anything that you really want to make sure gets said that you didn’t have an opportunity to address in this chat?

Not that I can think of. If anything, I think if you’re someone who’s going to go see the movie and you want to know more about who these characters were before the movie and what got them to the place they are in the movie you’re about to see, think the comic’s definitely worth picking up. It does provide a lot of context and character work. It’s not a must read to see the movie, you can go see the movie without it, but I think the movie help dimensionalize a lot of aspects of the film and you’ll see there’s a bigger continuity playing out there.

The game’s great. The experience is great, but if you do have interest in seeing this other stuff, it will amplify it, and at the end of the day, any of this media, the comic or the tie in novel, it just amplifies the experience.