Warcraft has overtaken Prince of Persia: Sands of Time thanks to how well it has done in China.
[dropcap size=small]W[/dropcap]hen it comes to video games being adapted into live-action films, the track record isn’t necessarily pretty. Super Mario Bros. is a film which every gamer knows but wish never existed because it was so horrible that even the main actors got drunk before going on set. As for Angry Birds, it shouldn’t even be placed into the video game category considering its an app, but that’s an argument for another time. That being said, Warcraft performed fairly well with critics, fans, and at the box office internationally.
Domestically, Warcraft was everything but a disaster. The film made $37 million total here in the United States and ticket sales dropped nearly seventy-five percent in its second week. However, it seems that China couldn’t get enough of the video game turned live action film because Warcraft made over $200 million in its first twelve days. Just like Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim, which found more success overseas than here in the United States, it seems that Hollywood doesn’t need to rely on domestic audiences to make a profit on films with a relatively large budget (Warcraft cost $160 million).
Warcraft heavily hinted that a sequel was to follow and director Duncan Jones was teasing that a sequel was in the works before the film was even released, so it would be safe to say that a sequel is on the way in several years. Hopefully, the writers and the director will fix what issues the first film had and the sequel will do much better here in the United States. Who knows, maybe the dawn of live action video game films has just begun just like Marvel’s Iron Man started the era of comic book films.
