Briefly: After years of stops and starts, Legendary Pictures’ World of Warcraft movie has finally locked in a director who sounds determined to make the live-action project work. THR reports that Moon and Source Code director Duncan Jones will helm their feature. The script has been written by Charles Leavitt and the film is aiming to start filming this fall, with a 2015 release eyed.

Sam Raimi has been developing an expansive World of Warcraft movie for quite some time, but this year’s Comic-Con brought sad news for anyone wishing to see that universe brought to life in movie form. According to Crave Online, the director announced that he would not be moving forward with the project. More specifically, his involvement and schedule for Oz the Great and Powerful meant he couldn’t direct WOW. “…They don’t have me directing World of Warcraft anymore because when I took the Oz job, they had to move on to another director. They had to start making it,” said Raimi. However, it’s unclear what director they’ve moved on to or at what stage of development the project is at. Of course, Blizzard Entertainment might have been too busy making sure Diablo III servers stopped crashing in order to make a few director phone calls. For now, let’s consider this news the equivalent of a loading bar that’s still half full. Or half empty, depending on how you look at it.

Why Watch? In the opening seconds of IRL, a young man starts to list his World of Warcraft character’s achievements. It’s impressive at first, until the audio editing transforms the accolades into an overwhelming mess, descending into a confusing spiral that sets up the tone for this light, yet serious look at the very real inability to disconnect from a game online. The young man is writer/director Anthony Rosner who delivers a fantastic short documentary told primarily with imagery from the game and from pictures of his personal life. It’s sweet and sad at the same time. All that money spent, all that time dedicated to something that failed to make him friends or advance him in the outside world. It also makes sense – accurately explaining how the allure of praise and adulation in the online world can keep someone in a basement even when there’s a beautiful country out there to explore. What will it cost? Only 7 minutes. Skip Work. You’ve Got Time For More Short Films

Why Watch? Because sometimes the real world needs a little fantasy, and a documentary is the only thing that can bring the two together. This short doc is incredible. It’s concept is one of sheer cleverness and execution that’s both thoughtful and playful at the same time. It follows a handful of World of Warcraft players as they go about their banal, daily work (walking through cubicles, driving forklifts), but instead of people grinding out a 9-to-5, it’s their WoW characters. Through visual FX, the warlocks and warriors are brought into the bus stops and buildings with some insightful, personal interviews acting as voice over. What Will It Cost? Just 4 minutes of your time. Check out Avatar Days for yourself:

The folks over at AICN have confirmed this evening that Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, The Evil Dead) has signed on to direct the long gestating World of Warcraft movie.

Video games Call to Duty and World of Warcraft are lining up to be turned into films. Activision, the creator of the games is looking into adapting the two popular games into motion pictures.

Behold, the first truly great, visionary film from this year’s SXSW Film Festival.

I do not play “World of Warcraft”, the extremely popular — and in many ways cultish — massively multi-player online role playing game. But while you won’t see me leading my character through the Hellfire Peninsula or Thunder Bluff, you may just run across a celebrity or two.