Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier’s new book revealed Blizzard could have had StarCraft, Overwatch, and Diablo adaptations but sued Netflix.
It would have been cool to have had The Witcher‘s Henry Cavill in a StarCraft movie or series. Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier’s new book, Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment, reveals significant insights about Blizzard. Even more so, he recently started a Reddit AMA thread to help promote his book. In the thread, he revealed that Blizzard had StarCraft, Overwatch, and Diablo adaptations in development but sued Netflix. Blizzard initiated legal action against Netflix due to the latter’s recruitment of the company’s former Chief Financial Officer.
The Reddit hangout started at 11 AM ET on September 29, 2024, when Schreier shared a summary of his book about Blizzard. The whole book was described as one that “chronicles the entire 33-year saga of the company behind World of Warcraft, from its humble beginnings as a porting company started by two UCLA students to its transformation into an empire, then its reckoning with a sexual harassment scandal and absorption into Microsoft.”
It was in this same thread where Schreier explained how Blizzard’s iconic games could have been made into movies or series at Netflix. However, the lawsuit against Netflix would nullify all of this. In early 2019, former Blizzard CFO Spencer Neumann was fired after breaching his contract to become CFO of Netflix. Putting two and two together, it appeared that was what soured the deal to develop those adaptations.
Fans and I have wondered when Overwatch would be getting a full-fledged series, as they have put out so many amazing animated shorts on their YouTube page. They probably could have beat Riot Games and the League of Legends adaption series Arcane to the punch on Netflix. The same could be applied to StarCraft, which had so many cinematic cutscenes and promos. The only adaption Blizzard got out was for World of Warcraft with the 2016 Warcraft movie. It had some success but not enough to carry out a sequel or build out a series.
Schreier’s Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard also revealed many other things that could have been. We could have got another StarCraft shooter. Their staff unsuccessfully pitched WarCraft 4. And even a Call of Duty real-time strategy game was mentioned. It appeared that people in the company wanted to do things for the fans but just could not get the execs on board. Or the execs made poor decisions against other companies, jeopardizing future opportunities. And again, the sexual harassment cases and Bobby Kotick scandals shed light on the poor working conditions—which probably went hand-in-hand with its creatives.
As for now, Blizzard is currently preparing to release Diablo 4 expansion Vessel of Hatred, along with its continued support on Overwatch 2 and World of Warcraft. Also, StarCraft: Remastered and StarCraft 2: Campaign Collection hit Game Pass in November.\
