'Warcraft' director Duncan Jones says Hollywood still won't fund sci-fi blockbusters starring women

Duncan Jones has gotten more ambitious with each film he makes: His low-budget 2009 debut "Moon" enamored him to sci-fi geeks; 2011's "Source Code," starring Jake Gyllenhaal, delighted both critics and theatergoers; this week, he's promoting "Warcraft," a big-budget adaptation of the long-running video game series.

The big risk this time around: Pleasing gamer geeks and total newbies alike.

On the latest episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka, however, Jones said some challenges — like Hollywood's resistance to movies starring women — are still beyond his reach. Between "Source Code" and "Warcraft," he tried to get a female-led science fiction film off the ground, but, he said, no studio would fund it.

"They didn’t think there would be an audience at the budget that I wanted to make the film," Jones said.

On the new podcast, he also discussed the death of his father, David Bowie, who saw a rough cut of "Warcraft" before his passing. Jones said one of his guiding principles is directing movies that he is personally excited for and expects more "Warcraft" movies may be in the offing if audiences show up for the first one.

"We all want the same thing, which is a film that makes us feel like we’re being taken away to somewhere that we’re not familiar with," Jones said.

For the short term, Jones's next project is a follow-up to "Moon" called "Mute," starring Paul Rudd and Alexander Skarsgård and set to be filmed later this year in Berlin. He describes the forthcoming movie as a mashup of "Hardcore," "Casablanca," "MASH" and "Blade Runner."

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