The film is aiming for a projected 2015 release.

Already on board is screenwriter Charles Leavitt of Blood Diamond and another Legendary Pictures film, late 2013's The Seventh Son, starring Ben Barnes, Julianne Moore and Jeff Bridges.

The Warcraft series has been around since 1994, initially as a line of well-executed but traditionally presented strategy games; in 2003, fans started customising Warcraft III and turned it on its head, creating a new genre now supported by lucrative professional competitions among players of League of Legends and Dota 2.

A year later, in 2004, game developer Blizzard took the franchise in a new direction with massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft, which maintains its status as the world's biggest subscription-based MMO at 10 million subscribers as of October 2012.

Worldwide popularity is evidenced by an estimated three million of those player accounts based in China; not only that, but the country also houses a World of Warcraft-esque Joyland theme park near Shanghai.

Other upcoming game-based movies include Warner Bros' Mortal Kombat, directed by Kevin Tancharoen of the game's two season web series, Assassin's Creed, in pre-production with Michael Fassbender already attached, Shadow of the Colossus, which can boast Hanna scriptwriter Seth Lochhead, and Angry Birds, which is slated for mid-2016.