In 2016, Universal and Activision Blizzard brought World of Warcraft to the big screen in Warcraft. The film only earned $47.4 million in the United States, but its worldwide total was $439.1 million. Regardless, Bobby Kotick, the former CEO of Activision Blizzard, recently shared his belief that Warcraft was not only one of the worst movies he’s ever seen, he also cited it as one of the reasons why World of Warcraft veteran designer Chris Metzen left Blizzard in 2016.
While appearing on the Grit podcast, Kotick explained that Metzen became burned out during the production of the Warcraft movie. Kotick added that he felt it was “a terrible idea” to make the film, but the deal was already in place before Activision merged with Blizzard. He also went on to say that Warcraft proved to be a major distraction for Blizzard that took the company’s focus off of the games.
“It took a lot of resources and distracted [Blizzard],” recalled Kotick. “You think about all these people who make video games for a living and now they have the chance to like make a movie and they’re like helping with the casting and they’re on the set and it’s just a huge distraction. Our expansions were late, you know patches weren’t getting done on time and… it was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.”
Kotick added that he begged Metzen to return to Blizzard, which he finally did in 2022. Since Metzen’s comeback, Kotick noted that they have hardly spoken, before asking rhetorically, “What am I going to tell Chris Metzen about game design?”
Despite Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, it was recently reaffirmed that World of Warcraft is not coming to Game Pass. World of Warcraft celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2024, and there’s no end in sight for the game.
