It’s official! Henry Cavill is finally going to get to make the Warhammer 40,000 TV show of his dreams. It’s taken a bewildering two years of negotiations, but Warhammer owners Games Workshop has announced today that all the Is have been dotted and the Tyranids have been crossed, meaning Amazon can get started with its adaptations.
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Word that a 40K adaptation was on the way first came in 2022, with the TTRPG-loving Henry Cavill’s name attached to potential projects, but it wasn’t until December 2023 that things seemed like they were going somewhere. It turned out that the 2022 agreement wasn’t binding, but the 2023 one was, and yet we’ve nearly run out of 2024 and still nothing’s started! We’ve now learned that the intervening time was spent agreeing to “creative guidelines,” which is actually more fun than it sounds—see below. I hope it was done over a game, GW playing Space Marines, Amazon playing Cultists, and Henry Cavill running around the room going “Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
Back in 2022, poor, lovely Henry Cavill announced he was leaving Netflix’s adaptation of The Witcher to reprise his role as Superman, moments before Black Adam bombed so hard that it destroyed the entire DC cinematic universe. James Gunn took over the franchise and made clear Cavill wasn’t part of his vision, and the actor was left standing at the altar, droopy flowers in his hands, his former fiancée now hooked up with Liam Hemsworth.
But then in swooped Warhammer 40K to sweep him off his feet, although it’s been a very drawn-out engagement. While today’s announcement at least confirms that projects can finally go ahead, the GW statement concludes, “Production processes in respect of films and television series may take a number of years.”
Meanwhile, over on the less corporate face of the company, Warhammer Community, there’s a story that better details what’s happening right now, and what the last year entailed. They explain,
Well, it means we now have synopsis and ordering for the stories we’re going to tell... yep, we said stories! It might have taken a year but it was a year well spent! And what fun - sifting through the enormity of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, debating characters, story arcs and the thematic grit that underpins it all.
“Enormity” is probably not the right word, unless they really hate it, but what splendid news! It wasn’t all lawyers and eyebrows, but proper planning to get a whole bunch of different shows (and maybe movies?) out of the license.
Next up, the site says, is scripts. The average time spent in a writers’ room for a prestige streaming show at the moment is around eight months, before anyone touches a camera or a paintbrush, so it doesn’t seem likely that filming would begin before 2026. While Amazon’s speedy turnaround on Fallout season 2 offers some hope we won’t all be living on vast spaceships by the time it’s out, the post also says “It’ll be some years.” It adds,
Of course, as with all carefully crafted things, this all takes time... and trust us when we say, everyone involved is las-focused on getting it all just right.
Meanwhile, Henry Cavill posted on Instagram to say how thrilled he is.
“My incredible team and I,” the actor said, “alongside the brilliant minds at Games Workshop, have been working away in concept rooms, breaking down approaches to the enormity and magnificence of the Warhammer world.” Again, not what enormity means, but I can rise about this. “Together, we’ve been sifting through the plethora of incredible characters and poring over old tomes and texts. Our combined efforts have led us to a fantastic place to start our Universe, which has been agreed upon by those up on high at both Amazon and Games Workshop. That starting place shall, for now, remain a secret. Watch this space, though—more to come in time!”
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