Director Duncan Jones had a very clear idea of the story he wanted to tackle with his forthcoming adaptation of Blizzard's ridiculously successful MMORPG The World of Warcraft. Man Made Movies translated Jones' conversation about the subject with Chinese site Mtime.

"From the moment I first talked to Blizzard, the plan was to start our film with the first time Orcs met Humans,” he said. “First contact! I think that for a world with so much newness to explain, this was a wise choice, especially when so many people in our audience may not know anything about Warcraft ... It was important that some of our characters would be seeing the world fresh as well, and that the audience could see the situation through their eyes. A Warcraft film should not be about a good race of humans battling an evil race of orcs. Warcraft should be about heroes on both sides trying to avoid a conflict, when villains leave them no choice.”

From a directing standpoint, Jones notes that the Lord of the Rings is a useful roadmap for not only adapting a huge fantasy world, but also introducing an audience to potentially foreign concepts.

“Peter Jackson did a magnificent job of ‘setting the table’ for Tolkien’s universe with his first Lord of the Rings film," Jones said. "I know that my job in this first film is to establish certain characters, places and culture while telling a story that a broad audience can be excited by. Hopefully, if I have done my job right, people will want to know and see more. There is certainly plenty more to tell. I would love to be part of that process of expanding on the lore that makes up Warcraft, but it will all depend on what you, the audience, think of our first film.”

Warcraft, which stars Ben Foster, Clancy Brown, Paula Patton and Toby Kebbell, is scheduled to lay siege to theaters on March 11, 2016.

(via Empire)