Activision Blizzard exec seems positive about a potential Overwatch film

When Overwatch was first revealed in late 2014, we were greeted with an excellent cinematic trailer introducing us to the game's initial character roster. Over time, Blizzard has expanded on this with various character-focused animated shorts. At this point, all of the Overwatch animated short films have a combined run time of 66 minutes, which brings up the question: could we get a full movie?

Blizzard has always had a particular flair for cinematic cut scenes and trailers. Now it looks like Activision may want to capitalise on that. Speaking in an interview with MCV, one of Activision's executives, Tim Kilpin was asked whether or not an Overwatch film was on the table, and it seems that the publisher is positive about the idea.

“We would like that very much”, Kilpin said. “We're a platform and a portfolio, these franchises exist across multiple platforms, so it's not just the game as a driver, but it's linear content [movies and TV] as a way to expand the audience and expand the opportunity and then esports [too], because pull all that together and you're talking about franchises that are frankly like no other.”

Translating a video game into a movie can be a difficult task. We saw Blizzard/Activision's first attempt with Warcraft last year. On Rotten Tomatoes, we can see that Warcraft didn't score particularly well with critics, but it fared better with fans of the franchise.

Warcraft is a series with such expansive lore that it would be difficult to fit all of the good bits into a film. With Overwatch, there seems to be a more manageable base to work from. There is still no confirmation on whether or not a feature film will happen, but out of all the franchises under Activision's belt, Overwatch seems to have the most potential.

KitGuru Says: Activision is currently working on getting a Call of Duty film off the ground, so an Overwatch animated feature-length could still be some ways off. Still, I think it is something worth considering. Have many of you been keeping up with the Overwatch animated shorts? Do you think the characters would work well in a full movie?

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