World of Warcraft movie gets Moon director onboard

Moon and Source Code director Duncan Jones has confirmed he will direct the upcoming movie for Blizzard's Warcraft franchise.

Legendary Pictures' adaptation of Blizzard's world-conquering RTS and MMO series will be a live-action movie with a budget "north of $100 million" , according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Shooting for Warcraft is expected to start later this year for an intended 2015 release. The eight-year-old MMO World of Warcraft, which still boasts 9.1 million monthly subscribers, saw its fourth expansion, Mists of Pandaria, released last year.

"So the gauntlet was thrown down ages ago: Can you make a proper MOVIE of a video game. Ive always said its possible. Got to DO it now! ;)" wrote Jones on Twitter last night.

The script for Warcraft --which is being kept "under wraps" according to The Hollywood Reporter--has been penned by Charles Leavitt, who has previously worked on The Express, Blood Diamond and K-PAX.

Spider-Man director Sam Raimi had originally been down to direct the film, but had to leave the project in favour of the upcoming Oz the Great and Powerful.

For more information on World of Warcraft, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.