Robert Rodat Engaging in 'Warcraft' With Sam Raimi

Sam Raimi is at the top of his game. Coming off the commercial and critical success of horror film 'Drag Me to Hell' (now on DVD), the 'Spider-Man' maven is slowly but surely moving forward with his big-screen adaptation of 'World of Warcraft,' one of the biggest video games of all time.

According to a report at MTV, Raimi has asked 'Saving Private Ryan' writer Robert Rodat to take on 'Warcraft' and craft an original story based on the universe of the game, which has spawned books, comics, table top games, card sets and a massively multi-player online role-playing game with more than 11.5 million subscribers.

"We would choose ... something that encompasses lands and characters and storylines, and we would be true to it. But our story may or may not be about one of those central characters," Raimi said.

Raimi, who has a cinematic touch of gold in horror (the 'Evil Dead' series), Westerns ('The Quick and the Dead') and thrillers ('A Simple Plan'), wants to be as faithful to 'Warcraft' as possible. He wants to serve the game's fans as well as create a mass-market event film, using the incredible success of the 'Spider-Man' trilogy as a guide (Raimi is already working on the fourth in that series).

Rodat will draft "an original story within that world that feels like a 'World of Warcraft' adventure. Only obviously it's very different 'cause it's expanded and translated into the world of a motion picture," Raimi said. Much like his work on 'Spider-Man.'

With Raimi's track record, we predict that 'Warcraft,' scheduled for 2011, will bring in hordes at the box office.