WarCraft: The Movie

A Sword & Sorcery Fantasy Revolution is Coming for Film/TV

Grab your Griffyn, and hang on tight!

Ty Leisher
3 min readAug 16, 2016

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WarCraft: The Movie was the first to fall onto the masses, but it won’t be the last. We’ve been in the early stages of this revolution for a few years now, and let’s be honest, since The Lord of the Rings in 2003, we have not had a solid sword and sorcery fantasy film.

Take a look at the top fantasy films of the past ten years, and you’ll find a lot of superhero, and young adult dystopian movies but not a lot of sword and sorcery fantasy. Until now.

WarCraft, despite being a box office flop, is going to open a lot of doors.

WarCraft only brought in a paltry $47.2 million at the United States box office. That sucks when you look at the $160M budget it had. But wait… look at the foreign box office: $386.3 million. Holy crap!

The largest part of that foreign box office came from China, at $202 million. China is looked at by a lot of industry folks as being the next golden goose. Just ask Jack Black at the Academy Awards.

So what? China, a place already known for their love of the WarCraft video game, paid a lot of money to see the film. In 2015, the 2nd highest grossing film was a somewhat sword and sorcery film called Monster Hunt. The 3rd highest grossing film that year? The sword and sorcery fantasy film Mojin: The Lost Legend which made $255 million. In 2014, The Monkey King was third in the box office and grossed $167 million. Are you seeing the trend yet?

Clearly, China likes their sword and sorcery fantasy.

Any studio that wants to compete in the Chinese box office is going to need to have a film or two in the sword and sorcery realm. Hasbro has been developing films based on their properties and they own the Dungeons and Dragons franchise, including one of the most popular fantasy RPG settings, The Forgotten Realms.

If Hasbro were smart, they would develop a cinematic universe around the Forgotten Realms or another D&D property. What Marvel did for the superhero genre, Hasbro could do for the fantasy genre.

If anyone from Hasbro is reading this, I’m available to write EVERYTHING. ;)

This is all my prediction and opinion, but more and more studios are going to see the value in sword and sorcery fantasy. I haven’t even mentioned the enormous success that is the Game of Thrones series.

It’s already starting. Take a look at some of the upcoming Sword and Sorcery films!

Okay that last one is a game, but still! The fantasy revolution is coming, and I, for one, cannot wait for it!

I’m Ty Leisher, a filmmaker and screenwriter from Los Angeles, determined to help others become better writers, artists and people. Watch my latest short film, Stranded.

Thanks for reading! If you agree the sword and sorcery revolution is coming, hit that heart button and share this article. It would mean a lot to me.

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Ty Leisher
Ty Leisher

Written by Ty Leisher

Not a serial killer despite my search history. Screenwriter & Filmmaker | Sundance Semi-Finalist | Buy Me A Coffee

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