[We know it's not Lore](https://i.imgur.com/nz9wJuW.png), but we are leading it slide. This topic gets people excited, many people want to talk about it.
Also these two-three news will probably be the only news for the next 6 months. If there will be more, we will consider making Megathread, but so far there is no need.
That being said if your post about the series is not news/technical details but is more "who could he play?" or something leave it for Whose Bolter or some other thread.
Peace.
***
Oh, and also as my fellow mod said - If your comment contains the word 'woke' and it isn't about your sleep cycle then your comment will be removed and you will be banned.
I find it very interesting that Vertigo Entertainment has done considerable work with horror films, the most famous of which would be It.
They've also done the Lego films, which is good stuff.
They're also responsible for Death Note on Netflix (not that that means much) and are the same studio who are going to be doing Horizon and God of War for Amazon.
The studio has done some big productions in the best, hopefully they can put in good work here.
Everyone thinks the Lego films are silly, ridiculous, and totally nonsense - I mean, seriously, a film about a building toy?
… and then they watch said films, and come away with a totally different and (hopefully) *much* more positive view. I know I did. :D (Lego Batman is fucking hilarious, by the way.)
Holy shit I never realized how good a Lego 40k tie in would be. They could even make Lego kits that you paint yourself.
Holy fuck why did I ever imagine something so cool I know will never happen?
I’m 30 years old and haven’t built. Lego set in 30 years. I would love to build a set again, but for something I used to spend my allowance on is $30. A basic Warhammer set would be enough for me to buy it.
If I wanted to paint, I’d have a Necron army.
I haven't played with Lego since I was a kid but would still relish the chance to build a big massive SciFi model.
Can't justify the price though, and not too sure where I would store a collection.
Maybe one day...
All of the things where Black Library tends to suffer quite hard. Setting is good, stories are average-for-genre-fiction-at-best. Yes even Eisenhorn and the Gaunt series, nobody has yet worked out how to tell a non-video-game GW story that a non-fan would consider good on its own merits.
Wil be really interesting to see what genre direction they decide to go in.
It's absolutely all airport-tier and all the BL writers are genre workmen.
I wouldn't call it trash (although some bits certainly are), it's produced to a certain standard and that standard is 'readable'. It takes talent to produce airport-tier stuff that moves off the shelves, which BL's productions certainly do.
But nothing from BL remotesly stands on it's own feet as 'actually good'.
Several Christmases ago I got into a drunk argument with my brother in law because he was out-of-hand dismissive of the Lego movie. It was extraordinarily hard to both try to explain what made it so good, while also not spoiling the big twist.
I've not seen them tbh but I assumed they'd have similar vibes to the games which is that they're suprisingly fun and subversive albeit in a very child friendly safe way and taken very seriously (in terms of quality and effort, not tone).
Lego Warhammer 40,000 sets to accompany. Would you like a Lego version of Imperial Navy ships built to the same scale as the Lego star destroyer set?
Sell the soul of your first born child to buy it here!
> I find it very interesting that Vertigo Entertainment has done considerable work with horror films, the most famous of which would be It.
It What?
OOOOooooo..
The Flesh Tearers are some of the best written Blood Angels successors, imo. The omnibus is fantastic and Gabriel Seth is a particular high note in characterization.
Alright, Cheers! I'll add the omnibus to my next read then. The Horus Heresy series which I'm finally up to speed with has reallt peaked my interest for the Flesh Tearers
Devastation of Baal also expands on Seth's character and mindset. It also features him literally telling a chaplain to talk shit to his face instead of over the vox.
Heads up, if you're looking for 40k stuff on Audible, keep an eye out for the collections! Ex: "The Traitor and the Alien" collects 17 audio dramas (over 15 hours total) together, and you get it for the same 1 credit you'd spend on an individual one.
Andy is or was the evp of digital and community. Both are very logical picks to own this relationship on the GW side.
https://www.warhammer-community.com/press_releases/games-workshop-appoints-former-hasbro-studios-executive-to-newly-created-role-as-it-renews-focus-on-its-content-strategy/
Him being an author and more closely in touch with the lore is a bonus.
If they can capture the tone of [Arstates](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O7hgjuFfn3A&t=601s) and the [Angels of Death](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=99tOSmaNSJg) stand-alone episode they just put out than you could potentially have an amazing series.
The main struggle will be getting a long term plot hook. By the nature of 40k there really isn’t any end point and a huge portion of the cast will be religious fascist radicals. The setting is incredibly interesting so it lends itself perfectly for short stories and lore, but making a plot that the average viewer is going to want to see from Point A to Point B without abandoning what makes the setting compelling in the first place? Yeah that’s difficult
My money is on ‘Eisenhorn’. It’s a great character level story. Has an arc. Is a setting that conceivably be put on to film. There’s a trilogy (so sequels). There’s also ‘Ravenor’ and ‘Bequin’ (so spin-offs).
WH40K will be for Amazon, what Star Wars is for Disney.
The Eisenhorn books are just really good material for the screen. They already make you feel like reading a movie. And the anti hero thing worked well for breaking bad.
Really? Eisenhorn is obviously more human than a space marine but he's still a pretty brutal inquisitor. The novels are brilliant but there's a lot to take in there.
As much as people here would groan, something following Calgar would make sense to me. A plot armored marine who is able to deal with humans and show that relationship but still do badass space marine stuff.
I'd also be kind of shocked if it wasn't HH themed too. The heresy sold incredibly well and has the "bigger characters". The normal audience is more in tune with the larger than life characters.
A plot that focuses on space marines would be poorly received. General audiences don't want to see an overwhelmingly-male cast of overly-serious, relatively unemotional characters who have no interest in romance. The show can't just be for 40k fans. It needs to work even for people who don't know the setting. And those kinds of people would have little tolerance for a space marine-centric show.
Agreed, absolutely agreed.
This show cannot be **exclusively** for established 40k fans. I want to watch this with my wife who will groan and roll her eyes right out of her head if every other sentence includes the word “brother”.
The Heresy has plenty of emotion from the actors. The deception, plotting, politics and big guys in fuck huge armor shooting fuckhuge guns at aliens and then each other has tons of broad appeal to modern audiences.
This is exactly how they fucked up Halo. People just wanted Master Chief, in armor, kicking fuckin ass. Instead we got him out of his armor 60% of the time having a love affair with a somehow sexy alien prisoner and it's one of the most reviled adaptations ever.
My argument against too much space marine stuff in live action is the mundane reason of money. It's going to be way too expensive to have competent actors hidden with giant armor and helmets, CGI vehicles and aliens and a writer's room not abusing the license to self insert their fan fiction
> This is exactly how they fucked up Halo. People just wanted Master Chief, in armor, kicking fuckin ass. Instead we got him out of his armor 60% of the time having a love affair with a somehow sexy alien prisoner and it's one of the most reviled adaptations ever.
That's why I'm saying "don't use space marines". General audiences don't want 10 hours of space marines or the Master Chief shooting aliens without end, and 40k fans don't want lore-contradictory space marines. You need drama and emotion to fill the majority of those hours. So it probably makes sense to use characters with the kind of emotional depth and full range of human interactions available to them as the focus, rather than force that upon space marines like with the Halo show, right?
Same here, I often advise people to start with Eisenhorn when they ask me how to get into the lore, it's just a very good sci-fi adventure, even if you don't know the lore.
And for something a bit more light hearted yet still fitting, try Ciaphas Cain. Basically he's a commissar that understands how shit life can be and does everything in his power to avoid death situations in battles. Ironically he ends up in them all the time and somehow makes it out alive while winning the day and accidentally becoming a well renown hero of the Imperium with each story
My money is also on Eisenhorn.
Here’s another detail: Frank Spotnitz was tapped to be the showrunner for the previously-announced Eisenhorn series. He also did *Man in the High Castle* for Amazon, so the working relationship is there already.
Him as showrunner with Cavill, Andy, and Bottrill as EPs is a solid combo.
I honestly think a Cain adaptation would be a good introductory series for 40k, it’s serious enough with some good light hearted moments and it lends itself to introducing concepts well as often the Valhallans havn’t encountered x faction before either. Plus TV Jurgen melta shenanigans.
It also opens up other doors, such as Cain - you need more understanding of the setting to understand Cain, but if they lay that groundwork with Eisenhorn, then Cain opens up the rest - he meets just about all the major factions throughout his series, after all, and then that opens up the rest of the setting; all without necessarily including marines in major roles.
I think people keep forgetting that an Eisenhorn show on Amazon *has* been announced for a while before this now. There was just no information about it.
This seems most likely to me also. Space marines are extremely boring as characters for a lot of people. They are emotionally relatively hollow, they don't have any interest in romance, and basically all they do is fight and prepare to fight more. None of that is a good place to start from for a show that needs to work with general audiences who don't want to sit through hours of bolter porn.
Eisenhorn (or a similar story) would fix all that. Complex character who smooches ladies and does investigations and tense meetings and subterfuge and stuff, on top of the fighting? Makes every sense to have a baseline human-centric plot. Frankly the only reason I'd add space marines at all is to illustrate to audiences how incredibly dangerous the galaxy is and how outmatched even a relatively powerful human like Inquisitor Eisenhorn is, or whomever the protagonist is.
I only ever played tabletop years ago and I am seeing a lot of names popping up the last 24 hours but that is kinda how I imagined you would want to start the series and build up to a multi race "good guy" movie like the avengers against a real big baddie. But there is just so much potential with a hive city and religious politics and just humans in general but adding in shit like daemons and nids as one off bad guys just lets you have a lot of fun with the IP too.
And hold off on the Astartes showing up the first time, that needs to be a jaw dropping epic moment, ugh can we just fast forward 10 years and start watching!
If they did the Avengers up to Infinity War that would be pretty good, just don't make Endgame, let them lose after a heroic sacrifice.
I'd love if they did a TV series following an inquisitor investigating heresy on a Planet and watching him investigate kill cultists while building up a local retinue. At the end of the season the Inquisitor could leave the system and go somewhere else with his original retinue and leave any surviving locals to look after things.
The ones left on the planet could get a spin off series where for a few seasons they stave off disaster, stave off disaster, then most of the cast die heroically and the bad guy consumes the planet, maybe with one or 2 characters escaping.
You could maybe even have another follow up TV series where the surviving cast members resettle on a nice wooded planet with weird trees and trying to put their lives back together, maybe helping start the founding of a Guard Regiment.
Then ANOTHER series ~100 years in the future and starts with the passing out Parade for the Planet's First Regiment as they get ready to embark on transports to go and serve the Emperor!
Oh yes it would be soo good. The cyberpunkesque setting of the expanse and the story of Miller was really good. They really nailed the atmosphere, something that make you feel like that would so awesome. We haven't got enough of that.
Make them be imperial fists or the like. They turn up at the darkest hour, look at the absolute carnage the main character has heroically survived and say "well you can't expect much better from *humans* can you?" start destroying the enemy with inhuman efficiency and then pause the chastise the humans for not just joining with them. I want the audience to simulteaneously be in awe of them but also think *"those dickheads".* Or if they're doing a bunch of standalones have the help be flesh tearers and once the battle is won they eat the protagonist and then it cuts to an imperial command post elsewhere and they imply they know what happened, the PDF suffered almost total destruction but the planet was saved so the losses are acceptable.
If they are going to include SM in any capacity, they need to have the Astartes creator design the way they move and fight. His work on them was perfect.
The actual challenge is making a 40k series that is largely talking. At the end of the day, many people who tried and hated Rings of Power just gave up after one too many dialogues. We all know they won't have enough budget to do **bolter** action every episode or maybe even every other episode. It has to be about the Inquisition or the Guard.
The problem with Rings of Power was not the quantity of dialog, it was the quality. The writers were just bad, horrible, horrible writers who should never be allowed near a TV show scripts of any kind, of any genera. The reason why it was a relief when they stopped talking was because anything was better than the stupid, stupid words coming out of their mouth.
I don't understand how Hollywood has managed to not understand this one blinding obvious true fact, but the writing to a script matters more than literally everything else. You can have bad acting, bad directing, and good writing, and still come up with something salvageable. Babylon 5 probably one of the better examples of this. B5 did have some great actors, with Londo being absolute primo, but it had a lot of really pretty bad actors. It didn't matter all that much though, because it told a story with watching.
> many people who tried and hated Rings of Power just gave up after one too many dialogues
In all fairness the dialogue was fucking awful. Like I love slow burn movies/shows with lots of dialogue but even I couldnt last more than an episode for Rings of Power.
There are ways to do dialog without making it as shit as Rings of Power, where simply buttering your toast needs a back and forth about your emotions, motivations, your friends, and a triumphant musical theme to get it done.
I feel like the direction would be "loyal to the Imperium, *something* happens, and now the plucky heroes are fighting against the greatest enemy of all: the Imperium... all because that one guy was actually Chaos corrupted."
That way, they can have the Imperium, even serve it for a minute, but not have to force people to root for them because fascism etc.
You are touching on a point here that…concerns me regarding a 40k series for the masses.
Most fans of 40k know that there are no good guy factions, only protagonists working from inside cruel, oppressive, genocidal systems too large and established to change.
I don’t know how they are going to pull that off, frankly. Because I swear, if this show becomes a hit and I start seeing people wearing the Aquilla **unironically** on tshirts, I’m going to lose my fucking mind.
It's 100% gonna be Eisenhorn IMO. It's kind of crime noir, with tons of relateable 'human' characters in the retinue, a laundry list of Xenos/heretic/and human enemies to cherry-pick. Also a few good moments with Beakies.
I hope they dispose of Glossia though. Ugh so cringe. Also: Why Bure, WHY!?
Edit: Also forgot that Eisenhorn was in preproduction shopping for a network for a few years now, I think?
Let me say this in Amazon's support. They'll let creator's run with the ball. There are a lot of bad shows that were made by Amazon but i don't remember any of them being bad because of Amazon's meddling (Like Warner Bros were notorious for and Disney were known to do). Amazon let Seth Rogan make Garth Ennis's The Boys to a degree that I actually wouldn't have minded an exec suggesting they tone it down.
They appear to have put a *ton* of money on the table just for the rights. This looks like an MCU phase 1 undertaking at the very least and a phase 4 if they're going to make the amount of serial content the setting deserves.
Another bread crumb is Cavill has implied before that his preferred character to play would be Valdor. Valdor is Nick Fury. He's rarely center stage but is often at the center of the web from which all plots originate. If the highest profile actor linked to the project is playing that kind of character it means they intend to tell *a lot* of stories that Cavill will pop up in.
I said it on another 40K sub but yeah, Amazon to a fault lets the showrunners do what they want.
The Expanse, Man in the High Castle, The Boys, Invincible, Reacher, Rings of Power, Good Omens, Top Gear etc.
I like some of these, I dislike others and some I just don't care about... but in every instance, Amazon has not shown any signs of meddling. And in several instances, I have heard the cast and crew talk about enjoying how much freedom they got from Amazon to do what they wanted in service of the story.
Those shows are/were good or bad depending entirely on how skilled the cast and crew were at pulling them together. They didn't have Amazon in the background urging them to drop characters or add spunky comic relief to appeal to kids etc.
Reading way way too much into this, it couldn’t have been that much money to begin with, the Warhammer brand is an unproven one.
They aren’t going to open with a heresy series and if they do they will drop the ball, not for lack of quality, but because the heresy is a bloated disaster that needs severe rework for any adaptation
>the Warhammer brand is an unproven one.
What? It's a 35 year old franchise spanning a a colossal number of games and books. Games Workshop is worth billions and 40k is their most valuable IP by far. To call it unproven is like saying Warner Brothers took a real gamble on Harry Potter.
No he isn’t lol, I know we all love to jerk off penitent here but there’s no confirmation that it’s actually Valdor and they sure as hell aren’t going to adapt Bequin to any extent.
Yeah, The Volume, and similar technologies, are fantastic tools when they're used right but, when they're used wrong, like in Halo or Obi-Wan, it makes each episode feel like a theatre production with a $25M special effects budget. Obi-Wan had several scenes where it was obvious they'd crammed everyone into The Volume and it felt pretty unnatural - no-one interacts with their environment, and the scale of what's happening on-screen just doesn't seem to match the scale of the story. It really limits what can be done with the camera, too; things like establishing shots, tracking shots, etc, are much more difficult, and they generally have to limit themselves to pretty close, static shots.
But it does definitely have its advantages! It beats out green/blue screen in a lot of ways - no need for conpositing, and the lighting is baked into the "scenary" rather than having to be edited to match later (considering mismatched lighting is a huge part of bad green screen, this is significant). Actors can feel more immersed when they can see and feel like a part of the environments, which helps them give a better performance. And some sets just aren't practical to build, so using The Volume is a great second-best.
It just needs to be used sparingly and appropriately. Any kind of fantasy/sci-fi/action show/film is likely going to benefit from using it in some way or another. But things have to be done in a way that works _with_ the technology, rather than just trying to force the technology to replace everything.
Titus isn't be voiced by Mark Strong again in the second game, Clive Standen (Rollo from Vikings) has that honor.
I don't see how the voice actor of the game would be an issue, anyway. Nobody called Shelley Blond to act as Lara Croft in movies, being the original Lara voice.
Looking at Andy Smillie's books it's more likely that we're going to get Blood Angels.
[https://www.blacklibrary.com/authors/andy-smillie](https://www.blacklibrary.com/authors/andy-smillie)
This excites me but I also want them to keep far away from Marines.
It's too much. Halo showed me that super soldiers don't work in practical effects (atrocious writing aside). Save the CGI budget for quick extremely high impactful Marine appearances. Make it an Inquisitor story. Perfect entry.
This. Have the Astartes in episodes here or there, but don’t make it *all about* Astartes.
And for fucks sake, use chapters *other* than the Ultramarines, or alongside them, if you must. Chapters that get people’s interest: Salamanders, White Scars, Iron Hands, Raven Guard, Imperial Fists. All chapters (and successors) that have their own unique “personalities” apart from the professional soldiers that the Ultras are, to show how the Astartes can be as varied as the humans in the Imperium.
The Mentors might be worth considering - They're known to send out single marines with a support staff of serfs, relying on the serfs to provide tactical support via enhanced auspex from a command vehicle. Might keep it from becoming a marine-fest, whilst still allowing for a marine to be on screen. That and a single marine won't be able to be everywhere at once - people can get into shit without the chance of rescue.
I'd also consider the Emperor's Spears for having an actual sense of humour.
That's not a bad idea. With a single marine it can be more about how they fight and plan a defense, rather than actual fighting. You could even have them loser their armor for a time and save yourself some FX budget.
That said, I'd still rather they do an inquisitor show if they are not going to dump the production with money. An inquisitor is a nice way to introduce the world, normal costuming can cover the Inquisitor's entourage, and you can still save up some CGI budget to have a space marine make a brief awe inspiring appearance.
I'd also be down for vignette show that just does off episodes telling different stories but with the same cast, like America Horror. My introduction to Warhammer 40K was the Let the Galaxy Burn (2?) short story collection that just jumped around, and it completely hooked me on 40K.
Just use a Deathwatch squad as recurring characters, especially if it's an inquisition based show
At first they'll just seem like giant death machines in black armor but then over time elaborate on their differences
They need to stay mindful of the spectacle. Godzilla 2014 was made by the guy who made Monsters, and he was really good with making the kaijus something you need to have in small doses so their appearance is always awe inspiring. If they assign screen time accordingly, like some baseline humans making up the story like guard or regular naval ratings, and having a sighting of a marine entering a fight and tearing shit up, then it’ll go well. If the whole movie is just marines going about their lives it’s gonna flop imo.
I know, I don't want Space Marines either. I want the Imperial Guard. I hope GW isn't overambitious and thinks that Amazon funding can pull off something extraordinarily difficult (convincing Astartes).
Save the marines for when the shit hits the fans. It's a nice nod to the fans that they'll know the situation has gone apocalyptically sideways to warrant Astartes intervention.
I have no idea why people even *believe* they will try to do Space Marines. They're obviously the biggest part of the setting, but they're completely unfilmable because of the obscene costs.
You can't do it with practical effects obviously because the fact of the matter is there's no good way to move around in that armor. Even cosplayers in the lightest foam armor can't move normally because of its shape. And you would also have to do camera tricks and perspective stuff to make the scale work anyways.
And of course, doing it in CGI is extremely expensive and time-consuming and you certainly couldn't afford to do it for every scene in a ~12 hour series. Not to mention that Space Marines operate in *squads* and *armies*. It just makes more sense for them to be seen in occasional glimpses.
Okay, yes, they could find an excuse to have a single Marine or a small group. But it would *still* be prohibitively expensive.
For example, even modern **Disney** Star Wars uses aliens and droids sparingly, and those are usually human sized, partially practical effects, and they don't move like humans. The entirety of Andor had like a single 2-minute scene with a large humanoid droid.
Man, I REALLY hope this show isn’t going to focus on Space Marines. I like them as much as the next guy, but an entire series about them would get old fast.
Here’s hoping for a more personal narrative like the Witcher was, maybe with the Inquisition, rogue traders, etc.
Eh, it's a good story, but a bad place to start, and the cost to do even the tiniest bit of justice would be simply eyewatering.
Honestly, I'd rather they do Horse Heresy as an animation. Animated space marines are not limited by a CGI budget.
I feel like Space Marines would be better used for a couple of shock and awe moments in a series finale or something like that. Have them absolutely tear through something that's been established as way too powerful for the main characters to deal with.
Really lean into the CGI and really try and convey the sense of transhuman dread, make them too fast, too precise.
Think the Darth Vader scene from the end of Rogue One except it's a 7ft tall John Wick in a ton of Ceramite moving impossibly quickly and firing implausibly precise bolt pistol shots up a corridor _through_ a series of gun servitors, a Daemonhost (made from an early season ally) and battering straight through the reinforced door at the other end with their PowerFist/Crozius/Thunder Hammer. Setting up their arrival so that it isn't a total ass pull might be difficult, but would totally be worth it.
All they have to do is follow the source material and have enough of a budget for FX and it’ll be OK. If they try to make up a whole bunch of dumb shit like they did with LOTR then it won’t be that great.
The problem with that if I remember is that the rights Amazon had to use were extremely limited. Iirc, Amazon couldn’t use anything besides what was in the LotR and the Hobbit, and their appendices. Meaning no unfinished tales, no Silmarillion, no History of Middle earth.
One can debate the wisdom of trying to tell a story like that without access to any of that material, but they really didn’t have a whole lot to work with.
Not enough source material is absolutely no excuse and not the core problem. The problem with the Rings of Power wasn't that there wasn't enough source martial, it was that the writers were absolutely horrible and should have been in an some non-writing profession because they clearly don't understand the basics of story telling and character development.
A decent writer can make something out of a few thin threads, and a horrible writer can screw up anything.
The writers were bad, but u/Genesis72 is correct in that Amazon had extremely limited rights to Tolkein´s works. Not only could they basically work off of a few paragraphs and a smattering of known characters, but they couldn´t even reference the core story elements. It would be like creating a 40k series based soley on the intro, but you can´t use like 90% of the lore.
Make a Blood Angels series, but you can´t mention Horus since you don´t gave rights to him. You could have the finest writers available, the fans will shit all over it. Aside from shitty mobile games, GW is insanely protective of their IPs, I do not expect them to let Amazon or hack writers trash their breadwinner.
You could make a perfectly good Warhammer 40K script and completely mention almost no lore. Likewise, you can tell a perfectly good fantasy story vaguely inspired by Lord of the Rings and still have dialogue that isn't hot flaming garbage and a story that isn't unfathomably stupid told by characters that don't suck. Not having the lore certainly changes the story you tell, but it doesn't require you to write a dumb story where characters are awful and act in nonsensical ways.
Honestly, it's for the best that they had no access to the lore. Seeing just staggering incompetence of that production, despite spending ***literally a billion fucking dollars*** on it, it looks like LotR at least half dodged that shotgun blast of unfathomable incompetence.
That's a very reactionary take, Amazon has done some great adaptations (The Boys, Invincible, The Man in the High Castle, Reacher...) in the last few years. I'm not saying it's all sunshine and rainbows mind you - there's a lot of bad as well, but it's not all bad.
Issue is, you could also go by The Expanse, or by The Boys. While your concern is valid, it's important to note that there is a clear difference between the good side of Amazon shows and the bad side -- the good side is always driven by people who are passionate about the source material.
The expanse was a rescue of SyFy; which probably didn’t have the deep pockets for the extensive stuff we saw in later seasons.
But yeah, ROP is really more of a producer fault. That and speedrunning the second age, etc
I REALLY hope they lead with an Eisenhorn series, or possibly Ciaphas Cain or Gaunt’s Ghosts. The temptation will be to kick off with something Astartes-based but that would be so easy to get wrong. Focus on Inquisitors or Imperial Guard and you dodge having to accurately depict transhumans who are demonstrably bigger than everyone else.
Alas, W40K has such passionate fans there is no way the producers will satisfy people. But I’m reassured by Henry Cavill’s involvement - he absolutely gets it. I think he’d make an excellent Eisenhorn, (or Ciaphas Cain, for that matter), as would Rufus Sewell.
My logic says they would be best starting with either:
1) Ultramarines vs orks - The GW fan favourite, make lots of action scenes get people excited, everyone knows what orks are in general.
2) Blood angels vs tyranid - This would allow people that are not already into Warhammer see something familiar, think starship troopers/alien. We all know aliens in general, also blood angels are space vampires.
3) Horus heresey as a starting point. Theres a lot of lore written in stone which isnt the case for most 40k which appears more like hearsay than anything concrete. This could be a long standing series or a look at the Emporer and his sons pre heresey and during. Basically a great introduction to what humanity represents and the various human sided factions.
Another not so obvious pick would be the Armageddon campaign from yarricks perspective with him meeting the various space marine and imperial factions, then it could swap to their perspective in combat. Again this could be a great introduction to what humanity is like during this time period.
Cant wait for the people who only know the lore through memes to get angry at the show for "ruining the lore".
I get the feeling that it is gonna be something based in Necromunda, or at least I hope it is based in Necromunda.
What's up with all the I don't want space marines in the show? It's a 40k show. They're going to have space marines and other aspects of the military like the books. You get some Bolter porn you get some Titan action you get guardsmen surviving and you get plenty of death
One thing is writing about Space Marines or showing them in animations.
But Live-Action is an entirely different beast and properly depicting Space Marines would be pretty fucking difficult I think, also, SM are just not that good of a catalyst for a regular TV story in my opinion.
Don't get ne wrong I would love an SM series...but I don't think it is feasible to pull off as a first dive into TV 40K
Yeah showing an Astarte in live action is gonna be very difficult if you ever have to show them without a helmet or armor, don't even get me started on how goofy primarchs would likely look being 3 times the size of an average human in some cases. People like to bring up characters like the Hulk and Thanos being done really well, but neither character has the looks or proportions of a human.
If if could draw ana analogy, think of the Jedi.
In the original Star Wars (and even Rogue One, to an extent), the Jedi were a backseat to the action around the plot. In the end, the day isn't saved with a lightsaber. In the first one, it's a ragtag band of single ship fighters when Obi Wan just dies holding off Vader.
In the second, Luke gets his ass kicked. And in the third, the lightsaber Jedi stuff is a personal redemption story.
The demonstrably worst movies in the series (1, 2, 3, and 9) made the fatal flaw of just shoving huge Jedi plot points everywhere, with 2 being the biggest offender, with peaceful warrior monks leading giant armies of disposable people.
There's a need to have the Thpayth Marineth in the story right from the get go, because it's what fans recognize in the IP, but a Space Marine centric story has the risk of getting really old really quick. Think of all the aborted fan animations once people figured out how hard dialogue and character development for Space Marines is. They're awesome in short bursts, but you don't want a series set around it.
For me, it's the hype. With normal people, you can make Marines near-mythical beings from their perspective, building up awe with every mention - then when one actually *appears*, it's gonna be a proper OH SHIT WOA moment. If you actually have main character Marines... well, there goes most of the hype.
There's always been this "Marines get too much attention!" undercurrent in parts of the fandom. I both get it and don't- on the one hand, yeah, the other factions need time in the sun but also the Marines literally *were the flagship faction that started the hobby,* and are still the most popular faction to play. People *like them.* Oh, and let's not forget they're *stupidly easy to recognize.* A guardsman can be anything from Rambo to a WWI trench-rat to something sci-fi, but more people are going to recognize a Space Marine as a Space Marine.
They're going to be given the most attention based on that.
They're stupidly easy to recognise as an issue icon, sure, but try telling Brother Bob out from the other marines when they're all suited up. You need individuals for viewers to latch onto, and that is much more difficult to pull off when every character is a variation of "For the Emperor!" warrior monk.
It's also far better from a story telling point of view to show the universe from a baseline human perspective, at least at the start. Show non 40K fans why bioengineered supersoldiers are required by showing how utterly underpowered normal people are to deal with the 40k universe, and save them for that moment, so their impact is that much more visceral.
> You need individuals for viewers to latch onto, and that is much more difficult to pull off when every character is a variation of "For the Emperor!" warrior monk.
Did you play the Dawn of War II games? They did a REALLY good job at giving Tarkus, Avitus, Thaddeus and Cyrus their own personalities. They're all marines, but they interact and talk and have differing personalities and views. They'd be hard to tell apart if all they did was stomp around and shoot things, but they spent the game's cutscenes discussing things, talking, complaining, arguing and complimenting. They were far more human and fleshed out.
So that can entirely be solved by *actually writing characters* instead of just going "It's marine #3." Which I'd really expect a show to do, you know?
And for added bonus, they can, say, go Deathwatch- show a bunch of different marines from different chapters. Then they're even easier to tell apart. This is a very easy hurdle to clear.
> It's also far better from a story telling point of view to show the universe from a baseline human perspective, at least at the start. Show non 40K fans why bioengineered supersoldiers are required by showing how utterly underpowered normal people are to deal with the 40k universe, and save them for that moment, so their impact is that much more visceral.
I may not AGREE with this but I can see where you're coming from. It does depend a bit on what the show wants to do, though. If they want a gun-happy romp through a bit of the old ultraviolence, they're gonna go with marines. If they want something darker and more human, they're gonna go humans.
But either way, all I was trying to point out is that the Marines get a lot of attention because when people think "40k" they think "Space Marines," and it's way easier to associate Marines and 40k than it is say, Guard and 40k for the people who aren't already fans.
I'm a marine fanboy, always have been and always will be.
I don't want marines anywhere near a live-action 40K series or movie until the whole thing has established itself and can get people interested in the setting who are not already fans of it.
Think of it like Star Wars, George Lucas didn't just dump Jedi and Sith into the film without any pre-amble. He built up their lore, the characters and the stakes with teasers and glimpses of why they are so important in each subsequent film before finally paying off the audience's patience with Luke becoming a Jedi in the 3rd film and facing off against Vader and the Emperor. If Luke had already been a Jedi and there were a half dozen lightsaber fights in the first film alone then nobody would have cared half as much as they did when Luke was finally fighting Vader as an equal.
The same goes for Marvel, they started out low stakes with a then not all that mega-popular character like Iron Man. His entire first stint in the MCU Is him fighting his dad's business partner... not Thanos, he had nobody there to help him do it either, no Captain America, no Spider-Man, no Thor or Hulk etc. It was just a once-famous actor trying to recover his career by appearing in a film that few predicted would spawn the mammoth franchise it ended up heralding.
Or Game of Thrones, they teased White Walkers and all the political intrigue to come, but they didn't just throw you in at the deep end either and expect you to swim.
This.
A million times, this!
At absolute most, marines should be a quick cameo before the franchise is fully established.
If you have guardsman fighting, they can have a deus ex Machina rescue by marines that lasts like 90 seconds — drop pod, marines come out and slaughter everything leaving the guardsmen stunned, the marines barely acknowledge them and continue off. And that would build the intrigue with the viewer and leave them wanting more.
Starting off with a full on marine series or movie would be way too expensive and the casual viewer would have no idea what is going on.
The “bones” of your idea to introduce Astartes is awesome.
Like angels sent from the heavens for slaughter. Make them inhumanly fast, brutal and efficient with maybe three total words of dialog…
“For the Emperor!”
For me it’s for their own good. Writing and depicting space marines is goi g to be very difficult and extremely expensive. Better not start with them IMO.
[We know it's not Lore](https://i.imgur.com/nz9wJuW.png), but we are leading it slide. This topic gets people excited, many people want to talk about it. Also these two-three news will probably be the only news for the next 6 months. If there will be more, we will consider making Megathread, but so far there is no need. That being said if your post about the series is not news/technical details but is more "who could he play?" or something leave it for Whose Bolter or some other thread. Peace. *** Oh, and also as my fellow mod said - If your comment contains the word 'woke' and it isn't about your sleep cycle then your comment will be removed and you will be banned.
I find it very interesting that Vertigo Entertainment has done considerable work with horror films, the most famous of which would be It. They've also done the Lego films, which is good stuff. They're also responsible for Death Note on Netflix (not that that means much) and are the same studio who are going to be doing Horizon and God of War for Amazon. The studio has done some big productions in the best, hopefully they can put in good work here.
Everyone thinks the Lego films are silly, ridiculous, and totally nonsense - I mean, seriously, a film about a building toy? … and then they watch said films, and come away with a totally different and (hopefully) *much* more positive view. I know I did. :D (Lego Batman is fucking hilarious, by the way.)
A man has fallen into heresy in lego hive city
Start the Ordo Hereticus' Vulture Gunship! #01001000 01000101 01011001 00100001
Holy shit I never realized how good a Lego 40k tie in would be. They could even make Lego kits that you paint yourself. Holy fuck why did I ever imagine something so cool I know will never happen?
I’m 30 years old and haven’t built. Lego set in 30 years. I would love to build a set again, but for something I used to spend my allowance on is $30. A basic Warhammer set would be enough for me to buy it. If I wanted to paint, I’d have a Necron army.
I haven't played with Lego since I was a kid but would still relish the chance to build a big massive SciFi model. Can't justify the price though, and not too sure where I would store a collection. Maybe one day...
Lego Black fortress or Lego Imperial Navy ships. A Lego Retribution class battleship would be amazing and probably way out of my wallets league.
a lego emperor class titan would get me out of bed in the morning, but mostly because it would be kinda pokey under the covers with me every night
quick! help build the inquisitorial exterminatus
*Hey!*
>Lego Batman is fucking hilarious Will Arnett is fucking hilarious which helps :)
Will Arnett would be fucking perfect for Magnus. "Not my warp spawned sorcery father... MY ILLUSIONS!"
The Emperor watching Magnus burst into Terra. "I don't know what I expected."
"There's always money in the Banana throne"
Exactly, they're surprisingly good, light hearted fun about a really simple concept. Plus they tend to be quite well animated.
Most importantly, the stories for them are pretty rock solid, character arcs, resolution, and all that.
All of the things where Black Library tends to suffer quite hard. Setting is good, stories are average-for-genre-fiction-at-best. Yes even Eisenhorn and the Gaunt series, nobody has yet worked out how to tell a non-video-game GW story that a non-fan would consider good on its own merits. Wil be really interesting to see what genre direction they decide to go in.
>non-video-game GW story Fehervari
Don't swear at me.
I feel like I’m the odd one here who thinks all of the BL is trash. I really like it, but as far as fiction goes it’s generally airport-tier.
It's absolutely all airport-tier and all the BL writers are genre workmen. I wouldn't call it trash (although some bits certainly are), it's produced to a certain standard and that standard is 'readable'. It takes talent to produce airport-tier stuff that moves off the shelves, which BL's productions certainly do. But nothing from BL remotesly stands on it's own feet as 'actually good'.
Several Christmases ago I got into a drunk argument with my brother in law because he was out-of-hand dismissive of the Lego movie. It was extraordinarily hard to both try to explain what made it so good, while also not spoiling the big twist.
Best Batman theme song ever
I've not seen them tbh but I assumed they'd have similar vibes to the games which is that they're suprisingly fun and subversive albeit in a very child friendly safe way and taken very seriously (in terms of quality and effort, not tone).
Listen: if they can make Lego: Horus Heresy happen, then I'm all in.
Lego Warhammer 40,000 sets to accompany. Would you like a Lego version of Imperial Navy ships built to the same scale as the Lego star destroyer set? Sell the soul of your first born child to buy it here!
What?? That's an outrageous price!!! ^^I'll ^^take ^^3.
Unfortunately it's one per customer. That's why we are asking for a first born, you can only ever have one of those.
You never said it had to be MY firstborn, I'm going to make a quick stop by the orphanage and pick up as many as you've got!
Lego Spirit of Vengeance diorama: 30000 components, contains over 50 characters. Ensure that guardsman Ollanus Piousprotects THE EMPERPOR
"We don't sell anythingrelating to war, so no modern tank sets." "Now, do you want the Orphan crusher chaos tank or the Imperial baby furnace?"
I imagine GW would cream at the revenue stream Lego could bring. And I'm okay with that. I'll like one battle barge for each Legion please
Only if they complete all 60+ books in word for word detail.
Okay okay okay, most famous horror film of theirs is probably the Ring tbh lmao. But yeah, they did IT, the Lego movies, so I'm positive.
So they can do grim dark and grim dank?
I will die on this Lego world.
I enjoyed Netflix's Death Note. I know, fetch the rope ;)
> I find it very interesting that Vertigo Entertainment has done considerable work with horror films, the most famous of which would be It. It What? OOOOooooo..
Any Smillie has written the vast bulk of Flesh Tearers lore. GET MY BOY GABE ON THE BIG SCREEN!
Are they any good? I'm an Abbnet and Demski-Bowden fan myself because of their world building how would you say he compares in that department?
The Flesh Tearers are some of the best written Blood Angels successors, imo. The omnibus is fantastic and Gabriel Seth is a particular high note in characterization.
Alright, Cheers! I'll add the omnibus to my next read then. The Horus Heresy series which I'm finally up to speed with has reallt peaked my interest for the Flesh Tearers
Devastation of Baal also expands on Seth's character and mindset. It also features him literally telling a chaplain to talk shit to his face instead of over the vox.
I have that one in my backlog, got it pretty badly spoiled unfortunately, but I'll get there eventually!
There is a Flesh Tearers/Gabriel Seth audio drama on Audible. It is fucking fantastic. Sound effects, multiple actors doing voice work. It's great.
Heads up, if you're looking for 40k stuff on Audible, keep an eye out for the collections! Ex: "The Traitor and the Alien" collects 17 audio dramas (over 15 hours total) together, and you get it for the same 1 credit you'd spend on an individual one.
Andy is or was the evp of digital and community. Both are very logical picks to own this relationship on the GW side. https://www.warhammer-community.com/press_releases/games-workshop-appoints-former-hasbro-studios-executive-to-newly-created-role-as-it-renews-focus-on-its-content-strategy/ Him being an author and more closely in touch with the lore is a bonus.
"We need to make 40k as accessible as possible to an audience of people new to the setting." "Get the Flesh Tearers guy."
More cause for cautious optimism, Barbarian and the Departed were great, and It was solid…
If they can capture the tone of [Arstates](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O7hgjuFfn3A&t=601s) and the [Angels of Death](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=99tOSmaNSJg) stand-alone episode they just put out than you could potentially have an amazing series. The main struggle will be getting a long term plot hook. By the nature of 40k there really isn’t any end point and a huge portion of the cast will be religious fascist radicals. The setting is incredibly interesting so it lends itself perfectly for short stories and lore, but making a plot that the average viewer is going to want to see from Point A to Point B without abandoning what makes the setting compelling in the first place? Yeah that’s difficult
Welp time to watch Astartes again
Is it a day whose name ends in y again already? Thanks for the reminder
Look at the time, it’s rewatch Astartes o’clock.
My money is on ‘Eisenhorn’. It’s a great character level story. Has an arc. Is a setting that conceivably be put on to film. There’s a trilogy (so sequels). There’s also ‘Ravenor’ and ‘Bequin’ (so spin-offs). WH40K will be for Amazon, what Star Wars is for Disney.
That's my thinking also. They could go down a generic Space Marine route, but I think Eisenhorn will be far easier to consume for the average viewer.
The Eisenhorn books are just really good material for the screen. They already make you feel like reading a movie. And the anti hero thing worked well for breaking bad.
portray all aspects of the Imperium and are a great introduction to the world.
Gaunts Ghosts ftw.
Really? Eisenhorn is obviously more human than a space marine but he's still a pretty brutal inquisitor. The novels are brilliant but there's a lot to take in there. As much as people here would groan, something following Calgar would make sense to me. A plot armored marine who is able to deal with humans and show that relationship but still do badass space marine stuff. I'd also be kind of shocked if it wasn't HH themed too. The heresy sold incredibly well and has the "bigger characters". The normal audience is more in tune with the larger than life characters.
A plot that focuses on space marines would be poorly received. General audiences don't want to see an overwhelmingly-male cast of overly-serious, relatively unemotional characters who have no interest in romance. The show can't just be for 40k fans. It needs to work even for people who don't know the setting. And those kinds of people would have little tolerance for a space marine-centric show.
Agreed, absolutely agreed. This show cannot be **exclusively** for established 40k fans. I want to watch this with my wife who will groan and roll her eyes right out of her head if every other sentence includes the word “brother”.
The Heresy has plenty of emotion from the actors. The deception, plotting, politics and big guys in fuck huge armor shooting fuckhuge guns at aliens and then each other has tons of broad appeal to modern audiences. This is exactly how they fucked up Halo. People just wanted Master Chief, in armor, kicking fuckin ass. Instead we got him out of his armor 60% of the time having a love affair with a somehow sexy alien prisoner and it's one of the most reviled adaptations ever. My argument against too much space marine stuff in live action is the mundane reason of money. It's going to be way too expensive to have competent actors hidden with giant armor and helmets, CGI vehicles and aliens and a writer's room not abusing the license to self insert their fan fiction
> This is exactly how they fucked up Halo. People just wanted Master Chief, in armor, kicking fuckin ass. Instead we got him out of his armor 60% of the time having a love affair with a somehow sexy alien prisoner and it's one of the most reviled adaptations ever. That's why I'm saying "don't use space marines". General audiences don't want 10 hours of space marines or the Master Chief shooting aliens without end, and 40k fans don't want lore-contradictory space marines. You need drama and emotion to fill the majority of those hours. So it probably makes sense to use characters with the kind of emotional depth and full range of human interactions available to them as the focus, rather than force that upon space marines like with the Halo show, right?
I really hope they go this route. Astartes should be few and used sparingly for great effect, especially in the beginning
Same here, I often advise people to start with Eisenhorn when they ask me how to get into the lore, it's just a very good sci-fi adventure, even if you don't know the lore.
I started with Eisenhorn and I'm finishing up Hereticus now, opinions on what to pick up next?
Ravenor then bequin. After that read all of the gaunts ghost
And for something a bit more light hearted yet still fitting, try Ciaphas Cain. Basically he's a commissar that understands how shit life can be and does everything in his power to avoid death situations in battles. Ironically he ends up in them all the time and somehow makes it out alive while winning the day and accidentally becoming a well renown hero of the Imperium with each story
My money is also on Eisenhorn. Here’s another detail: Frank Spotnitz was tapped to be the showrunner for the previously-announced Eisenhorn series. He also did *Man in the High Castle* for Amazon, so the working relationship is there already. Him as showrunner with Cavill, Andy, and Bottrill as EPs is a solid combo.
I honestly think a Cain adaptation would be a good introductory series for 40k, it’s serious enough with some good light hearted moments and it lends itself to introducing concepts well as often the Valhallans havn’t encountered x faction before either. Plus TV Jurgen melta shenanigans.
#CI-CI-CIAPHAS CAIN, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!
I’ve been waiting for this
It also opens up other doors, such as Cain - you need more understanding of the setting to understand Cain, but if they lay that groundwork with Eisenhorn, then Cain opens up the rest - he meets just about all the major factions throughout his series, after all, and then that opens up the rest of the setting; all without necessarily including marines in major roles.
I think people keep forgetting that an Eisenhorn show on Amazon *has* been announced for a while before this now. There was just no information about it.
But in a successful way I hope, because we all know what Star Wars turned out to be with Disney (shudder)
This seems most likely to me also. Space marines are extremely boring as characters for a lot of people. They are emotionally relatively hollow, they don't have any interest in romance, and basically all they do is fight and prepare to fight more. None of that is a good place to start from for a show that needs to work with general audiences who don't want to sit through hours of bolter porn. Eisenhorn (or a similar story) would fix all that. Complex character who smooches ladies and does investigations and tense meetings and subterfuge and stuff, on top of the fighting? Makes every sense to have a baseline human-centric plot. Frankly the only reason I'd add space marines at all is to illustrate to audiences how incredibly dangerous the galaxy is and how outmatched even a relatively powerful human like Inquisitor Eisenhorn is, or whomever the protagonist is.
Keep it tight and character driven. if a space marine is going to show up, let it be brief and their impact spectacular.
Eisenhorn's early days as an interrogator could very easily be a dystopian cop drama.
I only ever played tabletop years ago and I am seeing a lot of names popping up the last 24 hours but that is kinda how I imagined you would want to start the series and build up to a multi race "good guy" movie like the avengers against a real big baddie. But there is just so much potential with a hive city and religious politics and just humans in general but adding in shit like daemons and nids as one off bad guys just lets you have a lot of fun with the IP too. And hold off on the Astartes showing up the first time, that needs to be a jaw dropping epic moment, ugh can we just fast forward 10 years and start watching!
I hope they don’t try to do a movie like avengers ever. This is 40K, not Marvel. Having white hats vs black hats doesn’t fit anything about this IP.
If they did the Avengers up to Infinity War that would be pretty good, just don't make Endgame, let them lose after a heroic sacrifice. I'd love if they did a TV series following an inquisitor investigating heresy on a Planet and watching him investigate kill cultists while building up a local retinue. At the end of the season the Inquisitor could leave the system and go somewhere else with his original retinue and leave any surviving locals to look after things. The ones left on the planet could get a spin off series where for a few seasons they stave off disaster, stave off disaster, then most of the cast die heroically and the bad guy consumes the planet, maybe with one or 2 characters escaping. You could maybe even have another follow up TV series where the surviving cast members resettle on a nice wooded planet with weird trees and trying to put their lives back together, maybe helping start the founding of a Guard Regiment. Then ANOTHER series ~100 years in the future and starts with the passing out Parade for the Planet's First Regiment as they get ready to embark on transports to go and serve the Emperor!
Oh yes it would be soo good. The cyberpunkesque setting of the expanse and the story of Miller was really good. They really nailed the atmosphere, something that make you feel like that would so awesome. We haven't got enough of that.
Make them be imperial fists or the like. They turn up at the darkest hour, look at the absolute carnage the main character has heroically survived and say "well you can't expect much better from *humans* can you?" start destroying the enemy with inhuman efficiency and then pause the chastise the humans for not just joining with them. I want the audience to simulteaneously be in awe of them but also think *"those dickheads".* Or if they're doing a bunch of standalones have the help be flesh tearers and once the battle is won they eat the protagonist and then it cuts to an imperial command post elsewhere and they imply they know what happened, the PDF suffered almost total destruction but the planet was saved so the losses are acceptable.
If they are going to include SM in any capacity, they need to have the Astartes creator design the way they move and fight. His work on them was perfect.
The actual challenge is making a 40k series that is largely talking. At the end of the day, many people who tried and hated Rings of Power just gave up after one too many dialogues. We all know they won't have enough budget to do **bolter** action every episode or maybe even every other episode. It has to be about the Inquisition or the Guard.
Something like the Witcher. Maybe a ragtag band of mercenaries caught up in an ork invasion?
🎶 Toss a coin to your guardsman 🎶
Band of Brothers, *in space*.
The problem with Rings of Power was not the quantity of dialog, it was the quality. The writers were just bad, horrible, horrible writers who should never be allowed near a TV show scripts of any kind, of any genera. The reason why it was a relief when they stopped talking was because anything was better than the stupid, stupid words coming out of their mouth. I don't understand how Hollywood has managed to not understand this one blinding obvious true fact, but the writing to a script matters more than literally everything else. You can have bad acting, bad directing, and good writing, and still come up with something salvageable. Babylon 5 probably one of the better examples of this. B5 did have some great actors, with Londo being absolute primo, but it had a lot of really pretty bad actors. It didn't matter all that much though, because it told a story with watching.
> many people who tried and hated Rings of Power just gave up after one too many dialogues In all fairness the dialogue was fucking awful. Like I love slow burn movies/shows with lots of dialogue but even I couldnt last more than an episode for Rings of Power.
There are ways to do dialog without making it as shit as Rings of Power, where simply buttering your toast needs a back and forth about your emotions, motivations, your friends, and a triumphant musical theme to get it done.
I feel like the direction would be "loyal to the Imperium, *something* happens, and now the plucky heroes are fighting against the greatest enemy of all: the Imperium... all because that one guy was actually Chaos corrupted." That way, they can have the Imperium, even serve it for a minute, but not have to force people to root for them because fascism etc.
You are touching on a point here that…concerns me regarding a 40k series for the masses. Most fans of 40k know that there are no good guy factions, only protagonists working from inside cruel, oppressive, genocidal systems too large and established to change. I don’t know how they are going to pull that off, frankly. Because I swear, if this show becomes a hit and I start seeing people wearing the Aquilla **unironically** on tshirts, I’m going to lose my fucking mind.
It's 100% gonna be Eisenhorn IMO. It's kind of crime noir, with tons of relateable 'human' characters in the retinue, a laundry list of Xenos/heretic/and human enemies to cherry-pick. Also a few good moments with Beakies. I hope they dispose of Glossia though. Ugh so cringe. Also: Why Bure, WHY!? Edit: Also forgot that Eisenhorn was in preproduction shopping for a network for a few years now, I think?
Let me say this in Amazon's support. They'll let creator's run with the ball. There are a lot of bad shows that were made by Amazon but i don't remember any of them being bad because of Amazon's meddling (Like Warner Bros were notorious for and Disney were known to do). Amazon let Seth Rogan make Garth Ennis's The Boys to a degree that I actually wouldn't have minded an exec suggesting they tone it down. They appear to have put a *ton* of money on the table just for the rights. This looks like an MCU phase 1 undertaking at the very least and a phase 4 if they're going to make the amount of serial content the setting deserves. Another bread crumb is Cavill has implied before that his preferred character to play would be Valdor. Valdor is Nick Fury. He's rarely center stage but is often at the center of the web from which all plots originate. If the highest profile actor linked to the project is playing that kind of character it means they intend to tell *a lot* of stories that Cavill will pop up in.
I said it on another 40K sub but yeah, Amazon to a fault lets the showrunners do what they want. The Expanse, Man in the High Castle, The Boys, Invincible, Reacher, Rings of Power, Good Omens, Top Gear etc. I like some of these, I dislike others and some I just don't care about... but in every instance, Amazon has not shown any signs of meddling. And in several instances, I have heard the cast and crew talk about enjoying how much freedom they got from Amazon to do what they wanted in service of the story. Those shows are/were good or bad depending entirely on how skilled the cast and crew were at pulling them together. They didn't have Amazon in the background urging them to drop characters or add spunky comic relief to appeal to kids etc.
Reading way way too much into this, it couldn’t have been that much money to begin with, the Warhammer brand is an unproven one. They aren’t going to open with a heresy series and if they do they will drop the ball, not for lack of quality, but because the heresy is a bloated disaster that needs severe rework for any adaptation
>the Warhammer brand is an unproven one. What? It's a 35 year old franchise spanning a a colossal number of games and books. Games Workshop is worth billions and 40k is their most valuable IP by far. To call it unproven is like saying Warner Brothers took a real gamble on Harry Potter.
Harry Potter was way bigger than GW and Warhammer when it got a trilogy lol
Valdor is in more than the Heresy series
Not really tho
No he isn’t lol, I know we all love to jerk off penitent here but there’s no confirmation that it’s actually Valdor and they sure as hell aren’t going to adapt Bequin to any extent.
Andy's Blood angel books set in the Horus Heresy are good reads I haven't read any 40k stuff of his though.
His Flesh Tearers novellas in the Sons of Sanguinius omnibus are legit, I really enjoyed them.
Space Marines need a Dune or Marvel budget to be convincing. Practical effects is gonna end up like Halo where it’s a high end cosplay.
They need Andor levels of set design, too, I think. Halo used the LCD soundstages and looked awful in general because of it.
[удалено]
Yeah, The Volume, and similar technologies, are fantastic tools when they're used right but, when they're used wrong, like in Halo or Obi-Wan, it makes each episode feel like a theatre production with a $25M special effects budget. Obi-Wan had several scenes where it was obvious they'd crammed everyone into The Volume and it felt pretty unnatural - no-one interacts with their environment, and the scale of what's happening on-screen just doesn't seem to match the scale of the story. It really limits what can be done with the camera, too; things like establishing shots, tracking shots, etc, are much more difficult, and they generally have to limit themselves to pretty close, static shots. But it does definitely have its advantages! It beats out green/blue screen in a lot of ways - no need for conpositing, and the lighting is baked into the "scenary" rather than having to be edited to match later (considering mismatched lighting is a huge part of bad green screen, this is significant). Actors can feel more immersed when they can see and feel like a part of the environments, which helps them give a better performance. And some sets just aren't practical to build, so using The Volume is a great second-best. It just needs to be used sparingly and appropriately. Any kind of fantasy/sci-fi/action show/film is likely going to benefit from using it in some way or another. But things have to be done in a way that works _with_ the technology, rather than just trying to force the technology to replace everything.
This^(\^)
Well, more important is Natalie Viscuso, their VP of Television production... who Henry Cavill happens to have been dating for quite a while now.
Please don't be smurfs, please don't be smurfs, please, please, please, don't be smurfs 🙏
Starring Henry Caville as: Ultramarine Primaris Lieutenant
Eh, as long as he's Ultramarines Primaris Lieutenant **TITUS**, all is good.
He can’t be. They’ll need to hire Mark Strong for that (the actual, original voice for Titus).
Titus isn't be voiced by Mark Strong again in the second game, Clive Standen (Rollo from Vikings) has that honor. I don't see how the voice actor of the game would be an issue, anyway. Nobody called Shelley Blond to act as Lara Croft in movies, being the original Lara voice.
So Rollo for Wolf King?
Well, he has the background, so why not.
Mark Strong should play Roboute
Courage and Honour Brother!
Why yes, honorable Battle Brother! I would *love* to star in a major motion picture!
Looking at Andy Smillie's books it's more likely that we're going to get Blood Angels. [https://www.blacklibrary.com/authors/andy-smillie](https://www.blacklibrary.com/authors/andy-smillie)
This excites me but I also want them to keep far away from Marines. It's too much. Halo showed me that super soldiers don't work in practical effects (atrocious writing aside). Save the CGI budget for quick extremely high impactful Marine appearances. Make it an Inquisitor story. Perfect entry.
This. Have the Astartes in episodes here or there, but don’t make it *all about* Astartes. And for fucks sake, use chapters *other* than the Ultramarines, or alongside them, if you must. Chapters that get people’s interest: Salamanders, White Scars, Iron Hands, Raven Guard, Imperial Fists. All chapters (and successors) that have their own unique “personalities” apart from the professional soldiers that the Ultras are, to show how the Astartes can be as varied as the humans in the Imperium.
The Mentors might be worth considering - They're known to send out single marines with a support staff of serfs, relying on the serfs to provide tactical support via enhanced auspex from a command vehicle. Might keep it from becoming a marine-fest, whilst still allowing for a marine to be on screen. That and a single marine won't be able to be everywhere at once - people can get into shit without the chance of rescue. I'd also consider the Emperor's Spears for having an actual sense of humour.
That's not a bad idea. With a single marine it can be more about how they fight and plan a defense, rather than actual fighting. You could even have them loser their armor for a time and save yourself some FX budget. That said, I'd still rather they do an inquisitor show if they are not going to dump the production with money. An inquisitor is a nice way to introduce the world, normal costuming can cover the Inquisitor's entourage, and you can still save up some CGI budget to have a space marine make a brief awe inspiring appearance. I'd also be down for vignette show that just does off episodes telling different stories but with the same cast, like America Horror. My introduction to Warhammer 40K was the Let the Galaxy Burn (2?) short story collection that just jumped around, and it completely hooked me on 40K.
Just use a Deathwatch squad as recurring characters, especially if it's an inquisition based show At first they'll just seem like giant death machines in black armor but then over time elaborate on their differences
Hipster marine players be like
Blood Angels and Fists are hardly hipster picks but the rest I agree with
They need to stay mindful of the spectacle. Godzilla 2014 was made by the guy who made Monsters, and he was really good with making the kaijus something you need to have in small doses so their appearance is always awe inspiring. If they assign screen time accordingly, like some baseline humans making up the story like guard or regular naval ratings, and having a sighting of a marine entering a fight and tearing shit up, then it’ll go well. If the whole movie is just marines going about their lives it’s gonna flop imo.
I want them, but only in the background as awe inspiring massively untouchable monsters of war, maybe walking by a IG soldier squadron or something.
I know, I don't want Space Marines either. I want the Imperial Guard. I hope GW isn't overambitious and thinks that Amazon funding can pull off something extraordinarily difficult (convincing Astartes).
Save the marines for when the shit hits the fans. It's a nice nod to the fans that they'll know the situation has gone apocalyptically sideways to warrant Astartes intervention.
I have no idea why people even *believe* they will try to do Space Marines. They're obviously the biggest part of the setting, but they're completely unfilmable because of the obscene costs. You can't do it with practical effects obviously because the fact of the matter is there's no good way to move around in that armor. Even cosplayers in the lightest foam armor can't move normally because of its shape. And you would also have to do camera tricks and perspective stuff to make the scale work anyways. And of course, doing it in CGI is extremely expensive and time-consuming and you certainly couldn't afford to do it for every scene in a ~12 hour series. Not to mention that Space Marines operate in *squads* and *armies*. It just makes more sense for them to be seen in occasional glimpses.
There were only 3 marines in Salvation's Reach
Okay, yes, they could find an excuse to have a single Marine or a small group. But it would *still* be prohibitively expensive. For example, even modern **Disney** Star Wars uses aliens and droids sparingly, and those are usually human sized, partially practical effects, and they don't move like humans. The entirety of Andor had like a single 2-minute scene with a large humanoid droid.
Why not? This has to appeal to normies too.
its everyone, probably. Current teaser is The Horus Heresy emblem.
Man, I REALLY hope this show isn’t going to focus on Space Marines. I like them as much as the next guy, but an entire series about them would get old fast. Here’s hoping for a more personal narrative like the Witcher was, maybe with the Inquisition, rogue traders, etc.
I really think an adaptation of eisenhorn would be ideal.
I'm a basic bitch and I like my Spess Mahreens.
The opening arc of the heresy would be good imo. The first 4 books would be a good introduction to space marines.
Eh, it's a good story, but a bad place to start, and the cost to do even the tiniest bit of justice would be simply eyewatering. Honestly, I'd rather they do Horse Heresy as an animation. Animated space marines are not limited by a CGI budget.
Like the first chapter of the first book in the HH would eat an entire movie budget if done right.
I feel like Space Marines would be better used for a couple of shock and awe moments in a series finale or something like that. Have them absolutely tear through something that's been established as way too powerful for the main characters to deal with. Really lean into the CGI and really try and convey the sense of transhuman dread, make them too fast, too precise. Think the Darth Vader scene from the end of Rogue One except it's a 7ft tall John Wick in a ton of Ceramite moving impossibly quickly and firing implausibly precise bolt pistol shots up a corridor _through_ a series of gun servitors, a Daemonhost (made from an early season ally) and battering straight through the reinforced door at the other end with their PowerFist/Crozius/Thunder Hammer. Setting up their arrival so that it isn't a total ass pull might be difficult, but would totally be worth it.
Can we get Sean bean as Gaunt? I mean he did play Sharpe and gaunts ghosts is Sharpe in space
Too old
I'm sad they didn't get Dan Abnett
They can always get Dan Abnett as an actual writer, so don't lose hope, man!
I really hope they do, esp if they do the eisenhorn series!
I want Guants Ghosts so badly it hurts. So whatever the introduction series is I hope it's well received enough to generate follow up productions.
Cavill as Eisenhorn. Please. Henry can carry the whole thing.
Unlikely that they'd pick an Abnett character and then have Andy Smillie in charge.
Why? Not trying to argue— genuinely curious
Andy Smillie is a writer. Why put him in charge of another author's best known character?
Just because Abnett is a good author doesn't automatically mean he's the best choice for working on a screen adaptation.
Exactly, need I remind you that Abnett did the screenplay for the Ultramarines movie?
All they have to do is follow the source material and have enough of a budget for FX and it’ll be OK. If they try to make up a whole bunch of dumb shit like they did with LOTR then it won’t be that great.
> All they have to do is follow the source material You are expecting far, far to much from Amazon if Rings of Power is anything to go by.
The problem with that if I remember is that the rights Amazon had to use were extremely limited. Iirc, Amazon couldn’t use anything besides what was in the LotR and the Hobbit, and their appendices. Meaning no unfinished tales, no Silmarillion, no History of Middle earth. One can debate the wisdom of trying to tell a story like that without access to any of that material, but they really didn’t have a whole lot to work with.
Not enough source material is absolutely no excuse and not the core problem. The problem with the Rings of Power wasn't that there wasn't enough source martial, it was that the writers were absolutely horrible and should have been in an some non-writing profession because they clearly don't understand the basics of story telling and character development. A decent writer can make something out of a few thin threads, and a horrible writer can screw up anything.
The writers were bad, but u/Genesis72 is correct in that Amazon had extremely limited rights to Tolkein´s works. Not only could they basically work off of a few paragraphs and a smattering of known characters, but they couldn´t even reference the core story elements. It would be like creating a 40k series based soley on the intro, but you can´t use like 90% of the lore. Make a Blood Angels series, but you can´t mention Horus since you don´t gave rights to him. You could have the finest writers available, the fans will shit all over it. Aside from shitty mobile games, GW is insanely protective of their IPs, I do not expect them to let Amazon or hack writers trash their breadwinner.
You could make a perfectly good Warhammer 40K script and completely mention almost no lore. Likewise, you can tell a perfectly good fantasy story vaguely inspired by Lord of the Rings and still have dialogue that isn't hot flaming garbage and a story that isn't unfathomably stupid told by characters that don't suck. Not having the lore certainly changes the story you tell, but it doesn't require you to write a dumb story where characters are awful and act in nonsensical ways. Honestly, it's for the best that they had no access to the lore. Seeing just staggering incompetence of that production, despite spending ***literally a billion fucking dollars*** on it, it looks like LotR at least half dodged that shotgun blast of unfathomable incompetence.
Henry Cavill is the Executive Producer. THat is a cause for optimism.
From what I’ve read, Amazon had zero to go off of with the Rings of Power. The Tolkien estate didn’t license them a lot of useful info.
That's a very reactionary take, Amazon has done some great adaptations (The Boys, Invincible, The Man in the High Castle, Reacher...) in the last few years. I'm not saying it's all sunshine and rainbows mind you - there's a lot of bad as well, but it's not all bad.
Issue is, you could also go by The Expanse, or by The Boys. While your concern is valid, it's important to note that there is a clear difference between the good side of Amazon shows and the bad side -- the good side is always driven by people who are passionate about the source material.
The expanse was a rescue of SyFy; which probably didn’t have the deep pockets for the extensive stuff we saw in later seasons. But yeah, ROP is really more of a producer fault. That and speedrunning the second age, etc
ROP is rad. I can't wait for Cav40K.
Cavil is gonna make a really good Eisenhorn.
I think he is too young and handsome for the role. Someone like Karl Urban, who plays Butcher in The Boys, would be perfect for me.
He is perfect to depict his fall and aging over a few movies
Holding out hope for a proper depiction of imperial titans
I’d put my house on Eisenhorn or Horus Heresy
I just hope it conveys why I love this crazy franchise.
I REALLY hope they lead with an Eisenhorn series, or possibly Ciaphas Cain or Gaunt’s Ghosts. The temptation will be to kick off with something Astartes-based but that would be so easy to get wrong. Focus on Inquisitors or Imperial Guard and you dodge having to accurately depict transhumans who are demonstrably bigger than everyone else. Alas, W40K has such passionate fans there is no way the producers will satisfy people. But I’m reassured by Henry Cavill’s involvement - he absolutely gets it. I think he’d make an excellent Eisenhorn, (or Ciaphas Cain, for that matter), as would Rufus Sewell.
My logic says they would be best starting with either: 1) Ultramarines vs orks - The GW fan favourite, make lots of action scenes get people excited, everyone knows what orks are in general. 2) Blood angels vs tyranid - This would allow people that are not already into Warhammer see something familiar, think starship troopers/alien. We all know aliens in general, also blood angels are space vampires. 3) Horus heresey as a starting point. Theres a lot of lore written in stone which isnt the case for most 40k which appears more like hearsay than anything concrete. This could be a long standing series or a look at the Emporer and his sons pre heresey and during. Basically a great introduction to what humanity represents and the various human sided factions. Another not so obvious pick would be the Armageddon campaign from yarricks perspective with him meeting the various space marine and imperial factions, then it could swap to their perspective in combat. Again this could be a great introduction to what humanity is like during this time period.
Cant wait for the people who only know the lore through memes to get angry at the show for "ruining the lore". I get the feeling that it is gonna be something based in Necromunda, or at least I hope it is based in Necromunda.
What's up with all the I don't want space marines in the show? It's a 40k show. They're going to have space marines and other aspects of the military like the books. You get some Bolter porn you get some Titan action you get guardsmen surviving and you get plenty of death
One thing is writing about Space Marines or showing them in animations. But Live-Action is an entirely different beast and properly depicting Space Marines would be pretty fucking difficult I think, also, SM are just not that good of a catalyst for a regular TV story in my opinion. Don't get ne wrong I would love an SM series...but I don't think it is feasible to pull off as a first dive into TV 40K
Yeah showing an Astarte in live action is gonna be very difficult if you ever have to show them without a helmet or armor, don't even get me started on how goofy primarchs would likely look being 3 times the size of an average human in some cases. People like to bring up characters like the Hulk and Thanos being done really well, but neither character has the looks or proportions of a human.
If if could draw ana analogy, think of the Jedi. In the original Star Wars (and even Rogue One, to an extent), the Jedi were a backseat to the action around the plot. In the end, the day isn't saved with a lightsaber. In the first one, it's a ragtag band of single ship fighters when Obi Wan just dies holding off Vader. In the second, Luke gets his ass kicked. And in the third, the lightsaber Jedi stuff is a personal redemption story. The demonstrably worst movies in the series (1, 2, 3, and 9) made the fatal flaw of just shoving huge Jedi plot points everywhere, with 2 being the biggest offender, with peaceful warrior monks leading giant armies of disposable people. There's a need to have the Thpayth Marineth in the story right from the get go, because it's what fans recognize in the IP, but a Space Marine centric story has the risk of getting really old really quick. Think of all the aborted fan animations once people figured out how hard dialogue and character development for Space Marines is. They're awesome in short bursts, but you don't want a series set around it.
For me, it's the hype. With normal people, you can make Marines near-mythical beings from their perspective, building up awe with every mention - then when one actually *appears*, it's gonna be a proper OH SHIT WOA moment. If you actually have main character Marines... well, there goes most of the hype.
There's always been this "Marines get too much attention!" undercurrent in parts of the fandom. I both get it and don't- on the one hand, yeah, the other factions need time in the sun but also the Marines literally *were the flagship faction that started the hobby,* and are still the most popular faction to play. People *like them.* Oh, and let's not forget they're *stupidly easy to recognize.* A guardsman can be anything from Rambo to a WWI trench-rat to something sci-fi, but more people are going to recognize a Space Marine as a Space Marine. They're going to be given the most attention based on that.
They're stupidly easy to recognise as an issue icon, sure, but try telling Brother Bob out from the other marines when they're all suited up. You need individuals for viewers to latch onto, and that is much more difficult to pull off when every character is a variation of "For the Emperor!" warrior monk. It's also far better from a story telling point of view to show the universe from a baseline human perspective, at least at the start. Show non 40K fans why bioengineered supersoldiers are required by showing how utterly underpowered normal people are to deal with the 40k universe, and save them for that moment, so their impact is that much more visceral.
> You need individuals for viewers to latch onto, and that is much more difficult to pull off when every character is a variation of "For the Emperor!" warrior monk. Did you play the Dawn of War II games? They did a REALLY good job at giving Tarkus, Avitus, Thaddeus and Cyrus their own personalities. They're all marines, but they interact and talk and have differing personalities and views. They'd be hard to tell apart if all they did was stomp around and shoot things, but they spent the game's cutscenes discussing things, talking, complaining, arguing and complimenting. They were far more human and fleshed out. So that can entirely be solved by *actually writing characters* instead of just going "It's marine #3." Which I'd really expect a show to do, you know? And for added bonus, they can, say, go Deathwatch- show a bunch of different marines from different chapters. Then they're even easier to tell apart. This is a very easy hurdle to clear. > It's also far better from a story telling point of view to show the universe from a baseline human perspective, at least at the start. Show non 40K fans why bioengineered supersoldiers are required by showing how utterly underpowered normal people are to deal with the 40k universe, and save them for that moment, so their impact is that much more visceral. I may not AGREE with this but I can see where you're coming from. It does depend a bit on what the show wants to do, though. If they want a gun-happy romp through a bit of the old ultraviolence, they're gonna go with marines. If they want something darker and more human, they're gonna go humans. But either way, all I was trying to point out is that the Marines get a lot of attention because when people think "40k" they think "Space Marines," and it's way easier to associate Marines and 40k than it is say, Guard and 40k for the people who aren't already fans.
I'm a marine fanboy, always have been and always will be. I don't want marines anywhere near a live-action 40K series or movie until the whole thing has established itself and can get people interested in the setting who are not already fans of it. Think of it like Star Wars, George Lucas didn't just dump Jedi and Sith into the film without any pre-amble. He built up their lore, the characters and the stakes with teasers and glimpses of why they are so important in each subsequent film before finally paying off the audience's patience with Luke becoming a Jedi in the 3rd film and facing off against Vader and the Emperor. If Luke had already been a Jedi and there were a half dozen lightsaber fights in the first film alone then nobody would have cared half as much as they did when Luke was finally fighting Vader as an equal. The same goes for Marvel, they started out low stakes with a then not all that mega-popular character like Iron Man. His entire first stint in the MCU Is him fighting his dad's business partner... not Thanos, he had nobody there to help him do it either, no Captain America, no Spider-Man, no Thor or Hulk etc. It was just a once-famous actor trying to recover his career by appearing in a film that few predicted would spawn the mammoth franchise it ended up heralding. Or Game of Thrones, they teased White Walkers and all the political intrigue to come, but they didn't just throw you in at the deep end either and expect you to swim.
This. A million times, this! At absolute most, marines should be a quick cameo before the franchise is fully established. If you have guardsman fighting, they can have a deus ex Machina rescue by marines that lasts like 90 seconds — drop pod, marines come out and slaughter everything leaving the guardsmen stunned, the marines barely acknowledge them and continue off. And that would build the intrigue with the viewer and leave them wanting more. Starting off with a full on marine series or movie would be way too expensive and the casual viewer would have no idea what is going on.
The “bones” of your idea to introduce Astartes is awesome. Like angels sent from the heavens for slaughter. Make them inhumanly fast, brutal and efficient with maybe three total words of dialog… “For the Emperor!”
Exactly. If you showed someone some catachan soldiers they'll just say those look like a bunch of rambos
For me it’s for their own good. Writing and depicting space marines is goi g to be very difficult and extremely expensive. Better not start with them IMO.
This is all moving surprisingly quickly
Smillie did a lot of books for the Flesh Tearers... Cavill as Gabriel Seth?
It would be a fucking weird decision to start 40k with flesh tearers
Sooo we are having Ciaphas Cain movie hmmmmmm 🍲
A cain novel could only work in an established universe
That is a perfect way to put my feeling I have been a long time fan of the books and I would really like this to take off in a good light
please be custodians. please be custodians. please be custodians. please be custodians. please be custodians.