Jones tried to work in an insidery Easter Egg that would have tied Warcraft to his cinematic universe. “If you know Moon or Source Code, there’s this very sweet, very talented guy named Chesney Hawks who wrote this really, really big hit in Britain called ‘I Am The One And Only,’” he teased. “I used it as an alarm clock in Moon, and a ring tone in Source Code—and I actually got him to do a version as a bard in Warcraft.”
Alas! When Jones whittled down his 2 hour and 40 minute cut to the final runtime of just over two hours, “we weren’t able to keep it in the cut. But somehow, maybe, I’ll just sneak it into the Twitterverse… he did a Warcraft-medievally version of his single, and it’s just brilliant. Unfortunately I was the only one who thought it was hilarious.”
Gamers and more rushed out to see the bigscreen adaptation of Blizzard Entertainment’s wildly popular franchise, dropping a multi-player-fueled $31.6M in the process. In 73 IMAX plays, the Duncan Jones-helmed pic grossed $2.1M.
Russia was the most keen to convene with the denizens of Azeroth and their Orc friends and foes, launching the movie with $10M and 63% of the market. It’s the No. 2 opener there of 2016. Germany was also a No. 1 debut with $5.9M and a 42% share. France played to a No. 1 $4.5M; Sweden’s No. 1 bow was $1.2M, making it Universal’s fourth-biggest opening weekend ever behind only Fifty Shades Of Grey, Jurassic World and Furious 7.
Warcraft‘s other No. 1s included Austria, Denmark (third-biggest opening of the year), Egypt, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Latvia, Lebanon, the Middle East, Norway, Pakistan, Slovenia, Switzerland, Thailand and the UAE. There are 45 more territories to open over the next two months, including Brazil, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK, among others, next frame.
