Warhammer 40k (Amazon Prime)

Not sure how long ago the project itself was announced, but as of a couple days ago Henry Cavill, perhaps the world's most famous Warhammer turbonerd, has been attached to star and executive produce. Apparently a live-action project following Inquisitor Eisenhorn was announced some time ago and people are speculating this could be it.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Dec 16th 2022 at 2:19:50 AM

Oohoohoho big-time Warhammer production

I think this is our first since the Ultramarines animated movie

oooooooh!

Any hints about what sort of focus we might be having? Guard, Astartes, Inquisition, Arbites (prepare for unhappy Judge Dredd fans if that is the case), something else.

Because personally I feel an Inquisitor and their retinue is probably the easiest for a TV series to focus on.

Like I said, current speculation (apparently based on the fact that such a thing was announced some time ago but has been radio silent since) is that it's going to be about an Inquisitor, yeah. Eisenhorn specifically; my friend who's way more into Warhammer than me described him as "a fight fire with fire kinda guy but with space hell magic."

For a non-jokey summary: Eisenhorn's one of those radical Inquisitors who thinks that Chaos isn't necessarily inherently evil and in the right hands can be harnessed for the good of the Imperium (which isn't actually wrong just a very dangerous proposition); he's the classic "loose cannon renegade who only retains his job because he gets results dammit." He's been branded a traitor and excommunicated numerous times but keeps getting let back in because he always gets proven right.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Dec 16th 2022 at 3:41:19 AM

I've been diving into this series lately, and I wonder how it'll handle the war and chaos gods.

Eisenhorn actually used to be a Puritan (albeit belonging to one of the less... extreme groups), but over the years he ended up adopting more and more unorthodox methods to deal with his adversaries.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Dec 16th 2022 at 12:56:01 PM

I'll leave this running

Whether its about the Space Marines or not, if we do get an Astartes showing up 5 bucks the first one we see is one of the Smurfs (Ultramarines)

Edited by slimcoder on Dec 16th 2022 at 3:56:07 AM

Eisenhorn would make a lot of sense: it was one of the three pillars that created the foundation for modern 40k, alongside Gaunt's Ghosts and the Space Wolves series. Eisenhorn himself is a good figure to focus on; the archetypal Puritan turned Radical remaining in the good graces of the Inquisition by the slimmest of margins. The first trilogy was literally billed as How We Got Here for his profile in the Inquisitor tabletop game.

I'm hoping for a Gaunt's Ghosts series myself. Cavill would be a damn good Gaunt I think.

I kinda like the idea of Sean Bean being cast for the role of Gaunt, to be honest.

Well Gaunt is the Richard Sharpe to Cain's Harry Flashman

Eisenhorn would be interesting choice if Cavill wants to play him as well - at one point he ends up with his face literally tortured into permanent paralysis which given Cavill's memetic rep for playing stoic types seems a bit on the nose.

My biggest worry is that an Eisenhorn series might not keep stuff like that or change a bunch of other stuff because "it's an adaptation, so who cares".

Considering the recent controversy over Cavill leaving Witcher speculated to being dissatisfied with how the show adapted the material, its definitely gonna be interesting to see how this goes for him

Especially since isn't he also an executive producer on this? He will be making a huge amount of the decisions.

As for what to do I think a story about the Inquisition or Imperial Guard could be good. Sci-fi mystery and intrigue or Band of Brothers in Space.

So I assume that Cavill is a Warhammer fan? I know he was a huge Witcher fan.

I've been anticipating/dreading a 40K adaptation for a while now. The technology is definitely there to make it work, but I am VERY worried given the current political climate, since it's a story about a star-spanning fascist empire. It's very difficult to balance "the Imperium is badass" with "the Imperium is fucking horrible and even the heroes of this story are not good people for helping perpetuate it."

I'm not sure I trust Amazon to handle that properly, but it depends on who is attached to the project. Do we know anyone besides Cavill? Honestly, I'd probably just have Sandy Mitchell and Dan Abnett work together to make the script. Would be a decent starting point.

Cavill is a big Warhammer fan and has been obsessed with the franchise so much that it's his other favorite interview talking point. Got his Witcher co-star Joey Batey into painting figurines with him.

Wondering if Ciaphas Cain will show up.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Dec 19th 2022 at 8:57:27 AM

I'm pretty sure Cavill has shown off his Custodes at some point.

Cain is who Cavill should play.

One tiny issue with an Astartes focused show is that it would lack, how would you call it...ah yes, female characters.

Battle Sisters?

To get around this being a potential sausage fest, you would either have to include female civilians, Imperial Guardsmen or officers, or Sisters of Battle

Prolly the latter since they the closest to equals in terms of battle strength to the Astartes

Edited by slimcoder on Dec 20th 2022 at 12:21:52 PM

My lore is rusty but I think they're not Adeptus Astartes, they're Adeptus Sororitas.

Yes, you're right. There are no female Space Marines because it was hand-waved by GW as the organs not playing well with female physiology. The Soroitas are battle nuns.

We also likely wouldn't be seeing any female characters in a show about the Imperial Guard either considering that most regiments are segregated by gender. However, again, not all of them, and considering how 40K canon works they could literally just make up a Guard regiment from somewhere.

The Orks while technically genderless are coded male

Not sure about the Necrons, I don’t think there’s any fembots