‘One Night in Karazhan’ is the Warcraft movie we deserve

There wasn’t any one thing that sunk the “Warcraft” movie earlier this summer. But the game had been around since 1994, so there were some pretty big hints about what its fans would want to see.

And it wasn’t a movie about families torn apart by war.

For all the drama in the Warcraft universe, its players have largely chosen to approach it not as an epic saga, but a video game. And games are supposed to be fun. Our heroes are not epic warriors but guys like Leeroy Jenkins, the player who was too excited to talk strategy and rushed into his doom. We laugh at the overbearing Onyxia raid leader, instead of nodding along as he docks points from his raiders. Our appetite for shadenfreude is so strong, a plague that made the game virtually unplayable until Warcraft maker Blizzard reset it (several times) is still hilarious.

Now, it seems Blizzard is getting the message. Unfortunately, this isn’t the next movie in the Warcraft franchise buta promotional video for its digital card game “Hearthstone.” In it, one of the most dire characters in the “Warcraft” universe, Magus Medvih, is recast into the host of an epic rager inside the haunted castle of Karazhan. Now there’s a premise you can build a movie on.