Comic-Con 2012 Recap: Sam Raimi Reveals He's No Longer Attached to WORLD OF WARCRAFT Movie

Legendary Entertainment has secured the film adaptation rights to the massively popular MMORPG which, until recently, had Spider-Man and Evil Dead director Sam Raimi attached.

World of Warcraft Frostmourne Prop at
Legendary Pictures 2010 Comic Con booth

As a massively multiplayer online game, World of Warcraft enables thousands of players from across the globe to come together online - undertaking grand quests and heroic exploits in a land of fantastic adventure. World of Warcraft contains elements from fantasy, steampunk, and science fiction: such as gryphons, dragons, and elves; steam-powered automata; zombies, werewolves, and other horror monsters; as well as time travel, spaceships, and alien worlds.

A treatment for a big-budget adaptation of World of Warcraft has been worked on by Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan, The Patrot). Warcraft, the film's working title, is said to be based very closely on the game; which is played online by as many as 12 million people. Spider-Man trilogy director Sam Raimi was set to direct the project which will be produced by Blizzard Entertainment (the creator of the game, Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros Pictures.

In 2010, Raimi expounded on his love of the game and what drew him to developing a film: "I [was] attracted to the characters, the weaponry that environment that they've created. I love the visual world the guys at Blizzard have created..it's incredibly, engrossingly exciting. I love the different landscapes and the first-person interaction you have with different players online. The landscapes are incredibly cinematic and the characters themselves are really unique."

Unfortunately for Warcraft fans, Raimi revealed that he is no longer attached to the project during his Comic-Con panel for Oz the Great and Powerful -- his upcoming fantasy movie through Walt Disney Pictures which stars James Franco and Mila Kunis: "They don’t have me directing World of Warcraft anymore because when I took the Oz job, they had to move on to another director. They had to start making it."

Blizzard has not released any official statements regarding this news. At this time, Legendary Pictures has not set either a production start or release date for Warcraft.