After leaving Netflix’s The Witcher series, Henry Cavill has his sights set on a big-screen reboot of Highlanders, and more importantly, an Amazon-backed Warhammer 40,000 TV series will mark a (hopefully) tie-up with Games Workshop The beginning of a long-term cooperation. Now, however, we’re learning that may not ultimately happen, but there’s still hope.
IGN first shared the news, which popped up during Games Workshop’s annual financial report. Long story short: The company is very serious about getting things done or not doing them at all.
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Back in December 2023, we learned that Games Workshop had finally signed a deal with Amazon to start working on a tentative series and further build out the universe, as it was also keen on getting the movie off the ground. The fine print states that Games Workshop will only work exclusively with Amazon for 12 months starting in December 2023 “to agree on creative guidelines for movies and TV series developed by Amazon.” Such creative guidelines don’t appear to be in place yet, so if the issues aren’t resolved by December 2024, Amazon may not end up with exclusive rights to the IP.
No matter how enthusiastic Cavill is about the potential project, Warhammer 40,000 is a tough beast to tame, as Games Workshop is notoriously strict when it comes to its flagship sci-fi universe outside of the realm of tabletop gaming. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 creative director Oliver Hollis-Leick confirmed this to me in a recent chat.
Note that most intellectual property rights holders want to make sure collaborations and adaptations are done correctly, but too often we end up with half-baked projects that bear little resemblance to the source material, or don’t give it a tantalizing enough twist. At the same time, Games Workshop has been very careful with how WH40K’s premise and everything else is presented, bringing it closer to how Disney and Lucasfilm handle the Star Wars IP outside of movies and TV than it does to The Hedgehog. Works like Sonic.
We’re pretty sure a WH40K series or movie will happen sooner or later, but we don’t expect this specific approach to the long-running universe to succeed. Regardless, Starfighter 2 looks awesome, so we’re just going to be hyped about it.
