"Orcs reminded me of the Vikings"

Director Duncan Jones - About the film "Warcraft"

In Russia, on May 26, the rental of the film "Warcraft" begins, the action of which takes place in the same game universe. The picture, telling about the first meeting of people with the orcs, was shot by the British director Duncan Jones, the son of David Bowie, known for the film "The source code". At the request of Medusa, journalist Sergei Obolonkov talked with Duncan Jones about his new picture, favorite games and orcs.

- It is clear that you are a fan of Warcraft. What game did your acquaintance with this universe began-with strategies in the 1990s or already with World of Warcraft?

“I started with the very first game, Orcs and Humans.” That is, not even so: I started earlier when I met Blizzard, it was called The Lost Vikings.

- Oh, it was a great game!

- Yes, for sure! I made me think, there were good puzzles in it. In general, I was very interested in her, and then someone told me that the same guys made another game, called Warcraft. I decided to try, and then quickly got involved. Around the same time, another strategy came out, Command & Conquer, had to share the time and attention between it and the Warcraft.

- And which of the games did you like more?

- This is a dishonest question! ( Laughs .) Each of them had its own attractive features. I can tell, for example, what I liked in C& C: there it was possible to place fighters in buildings so that they would protect controlled structures. In Warcraft, this was not enough for me.

- What race did you prefer - orcs or people?

- I basically played for the orcs. I don't even know how to explain it. I think the fact is that the orcs reminded me of the Vikings. And in those days I was very fond of Vikings, berserkers, Scandinavian mythology and all sorts of similar things.

- Given your hobbies, it is quite strange that you undertook to film Warcraft, not The Lost Vikings.

- Generally speaking, this is a great idea. I just imagine posters: "Travis Fimmel and Rob Kazinsky in the film" Rushed Vikings "." It may turn out funny, let it be a comedy ... No, let the comedic historical action movie be better.

- Historical? If I do not confuse anything, in The Lost Vikings the heroes visited very diverse locations - from Egyptian pyramids to spacecraft.

- Yes, it was a matter ... Okay, let the events unfold in our days in the film, and there we’ll figure it out.

- Let's get back to people and orcs. You once said in an interview: in the war, everyone thinks that he is on the right side. Nevertheless, the viewer will probably be much easier to take the side of people, and not green giants from the parallel world.

- That is why I decided to start a picture with dating with orcs. We tried to show that they are not just monsters who suddenly climbed from a magic portal. It seems to me that it works: after such an introductory part, viewers simply cannot be indifferent to Durotan, his wife and their baby.

-Well, I don’t know, in my opinion, there is no talk of attachment to them. Their child is completely terrible.

- That is, you watched the film and were not imbued with sympathy? Something is wrong with you! ( Laughs .) For the most part, viewers feel in relation to Durotan and his family, if not affection, then at least sympathy.

- The film has scenes in which the camera slides above the ground, the audience is shown forests and villages, and all this looks like Warcraft 2 in high resolution. There is a Polymorph spell borrowed from the games, with which the magician turns the guard into a sheep. These are all obvious quotes - are there those that may go unnoticed?

- Quotes there is generally the sea. Here, for example, when the magician Kadgar copes with one important task, a yellow light spiral arises above it and a characteristic sound is heard - in World of Warcraft, this all means that your hero has reached the next level.

-You once said that you are a kind of translator-you adapt and retell traditions from “Warcraft” for those who are not familiar with this universe. So who, in your opinion, is the main audience of the film-fans of the franchise, fans of fantasy or just people who want to see something bright and spectacular on the big screen?

- Key audience - of course, fans and fans of fantasy. Say, when Peter Jackson shot the adaptation of the Lord of the Rings, not only the people who read the books of Tolkien went to the cinemas. The characters of the film were able to attract even spectators who are not familiar with the original source to the screens. I hope that we also got the same charismatic heroes.

True, in our case, everything is not so simple. About Tolkien, a person thinks: “I have not read his books, but familiar with other authors who worked in the same genre. It is more or less clear what awaits me. ” They will probably say about our tape: “This is based on a computer game? I don't play games! " I would like to believe that such skeptics will nevertheless give the tape a chance and understand that the adaptation of the game can also be exciting.

- Your two previous full -range ones - “Moon 2112” and “source code” - were removed in completely different conditions. These were small independent projects. This time you had to work under hard control by Blizzard - did this not cause discomfort?

-This film adaptation was conceived a long time ago, shooting was postponed several times. The guys from Blizzard have already begun to doubt that something would work out, and then I suddenly appear with an idea that is fully consistent with their expectations. That is, from the very beginning we understood each other, and therefore worked.

- In the film, if desired, you can notice a lot of paths leading to Sicvel ...

- Yes, for example, the same orchi baby that seemed terrible to you. ( Laughs .)

- And he is, including. Did you plan to remove the sequel from the very beginning? Or was it done at the insistence of Blizzard?

-No, no, this is also my idea. The story of “Warcraft” is ten years, it was immediately clear that it would not work to state it all in one picture. To pretend that after the end of the film in this world nothing important happened would be wrong. The orcs actually only arrived in the new world, leaving behind their own, destroyed by wars, the most interesting is still ahead.

- How many films are planned?

- I hope it will be a trilogy. More precisely, I would like to take part in the filming of three films, someone else can continue to continue.

- Have you already started working on a continuation?

- No, so far these are only plans. We froze in anticipation - we want to release the first tape for rent and see what reaction the audience will be.

- You are not afraid of the thought that you can get stuck in this universe for 15 years, like Peter Jackson in Middle -earth?

“I am a big fan of Peter Jackson, but I myself would prefer to move according to the scheme worked out by Chris Nolan.” I recall, he shot three paintings about Batman, and managed to work on his own projects between them. This is literally a career of dreams for me. I would like to be able to break away from “Warcraft” from time to time and put less resource -fitting tapes comparable in scale to the “source code”.

Sergey Obolonkov

Moscow