We may earn a commission when you buy through links in our articles. Learn more.

Warcraft: CGI & Humans – the cast of Blizzard’s feature film revealed

Mists of Pandaria

The moo-vies! Even from the other side of the monitor I can feel the glitz and glam oozing out of the Warcraft cast, spilling glitter through the gaps in my keyboard and probably disabling the ‘e’ key. It’s always a vowel.

I’d love to see whether any of those flecks of gold managed to permeate the monolithic visage of Blizzard, or whether the Irvine developers’ stern executive board instead asked for cold, hard stats on Dominic Cooper’s acting ability.

So yes, Dominic ‘Best History Boy’ Cooper’s in the “final stages” of negotiation over the starring role in Warcraft. He’d better make up his mind: they start filming in January.

The upper rung of the confirmed cast also includes Paula Patton, who you won’t remember from Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, even if you watched it, and Ben Foster, a regular in expensive but forgettable films since 2006’s X-Men 3.

The list is fleshed out by top TV alumni like True Blood’s Rob Kazinsky and Vikings’ Travis Fimmel, plus Yorkshire lad Toby Kebbell, who graduated to Hollywood via Guy Richie’s RocknRolla.

Notably missing is Colin Farrell, last heard espousing the quality of Warcraft’s script.

“The script was just really, really cool, and it’s just a world that I never explored – and it’s a really big and fantastical world,” he said last month. “I can’t imagine what he, being as visually gifted as he is, Duncan, and what he did on Moon with, like, a dime, I can’t imagine what he’d do with this Warcraft.”

Director Duncan Jones told the crowd at BlizzCon this year that he was making a “war movie” – the tale of a conflict between orcs and humans which neither Durotan or Lothar want. Blood Diamond scribe Charles Leavitt has reportedly used the plot’s dual perspective to explore some uncomfortable truths about the human (and orc) condition.

Warcraft is expected to match a PG-13 rating. Said Jones: “You can get away with some shit in PG-13”. It’ll be out in 2016 – a comfortable distance from the Star Wars reboot, which it’d previously shared a date with.

What do you make of the cast? They’re a mostly B-list bunch, but I’m not sure the distraction of star power would have done Warcraft any favours.

Thanks, Polygon.