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I think that if they were making the horus heresy into movies, they should make a movie for each of the books.
Then you wouldnt have to condens it down into nothingness and pull a MCU: pump out movies like a they are bullets from a minigun.

 Midnightdeathblade wrote:
We can wish all we want. It will never happen. And i belive 40k will never become succesfully recognized in the film industry, reguardless how badass a 40k movie could be with the right backing and people behind it.

I mean, I'm sure the same thing was said of comic books a few times.

What Games Workshop should really do is hire the team that did the Samurai Jack and Clone Wars cartoons. That kind of over the top action against and between huge armies in five to fifteen minute chunks would be the best representation of the cool parts of 40k without needing much if any backstory or context and would look amazing. Possibly add in hyper detailed stills ala Spongebob for character moments.

I just want to see the White Scars take on some Speek Freeks like this episode from The Clone Wars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXlPI2XSFrc

if done properly it would be dancing on the graves of the MCU and Star Wars, a year later disney buys GW

Maybe if instead of trying to capture the whole story they could do it as a series of vignettes of key or interesting parts.
That way they would be able to hint at the larger whole without the baggage of pacing and accuracy.

I think the only way it would work is if a major player player(netflix/AMC for example) forked out the dosh.

I would do it in 4 films or a 10 episode series..

However what you have to consider is that if big money is forked out, it would need to be marketable to the unitiated audiance.
Sadly I think they couldint really mentioned warhammer 40k in the name....Because WH40k is sadly stigmatised as the extreme domain of beardnecks with 0 social skills... Not true at all but it is what it is.

I think In order to be applicable to the wider audiance youd have to start from the start. Have you guys tried explaining Wh40k universe to someone who doesnt know anything about it? It seems obvious to us, but for someone who has zero prior knowledge its a herculean task.
I.E. The Emprah being the protagonist of the first movie set in a mad max type setting. This would have to cover the history, summarise the dark age/golden age and why things are the way they are and why the big E is creating space marines.

The following movie would be about the crusade and the recovery of the primarchs and towards the end there would be lot of charcter building and thats how you convery the different primarchs characters across. Or just not even focus on the primarchs at all. I think the Emperah should become slightly more distant and we get more the view point of some marines/ Fleet commanders & high ranking humans. Maybe the lords of terra? Ending the movie with word bearers getting their spanking thus setting things in motion.

The nex movie should be about how things have moved on and how the Big E really becomes distant and chaos creeping in and Horus being full on turned, and making the cogs turn etc. the heresy being in full swing ending with the massacre then setting out for terra

Final movie should be purely about the siege of terra, the big fight and how the big E becomes entombed in the golden throne and the immediate aftermath.

Dunno if that makes sense..

Funny, but I was thinking the same thing earlier today. It would definitely work as a series of movies supplemented by Streaming programming (who has cable anymore?).

Unification Wars as above, followed by Primarch Discovery shows over the course of 1-2 years and advancing the plot.

Great Crusade as above, followed by Legion Vignette Action shows over the course of 1-2 years, advancing the plot.

Ullanor Crusade as above, followed by The Descent into Chaos showcasing the collapse of the Primarchs

Isstvan...just a single word for the title. The following shows could be the Flight of the Eisenstein series

Seige of Terra. The finale to the 5 movie, 30-40 episode arc.

Good God no!

Hollywood would butcher it. Best left as books.

Certain Horus Heresy books deserve to be butchered, because they're awful. Other ones, well, it would suck to see the changes necessary to make them mass market products.

A series of 56 books. It'd be a massive undertaking to turn that to film.

I'd say start from how many Star Wars films there are. 12 Skywalker Saga and 3 anthology films. And all those films should be three hours long.

And I'd say it'd better be an HBO series with roughly each book compressed into a GoT finale length episode of 80 minutes.

56 episodes would be seven eight episode seasons.

It should be a TV series with 3+ seasons.

I agree with the sentiments that this project would be impossible as a film series - better as a series from one of the streaming services. No Hollywood studio would ever do this series justice, it is simply too big.

To do the Heresy properly, you would have to begin by introducing the series universe first - via the Guard or and Inquisitorial team or a Rogue Trader, as others have mentioned.

[Personally, I'd like a project focusing on one generic conflict, showing all the Imperium's assets deployed against one xenos enemy. Begin from the perspective of the unified command prosecuting the conflict, then to the fleet action required to clear the planetary defenses, to the landing. Begin that through the eyes of a Princeps, expand outside the Titan to an overview of the battle, show the Marines, the Guard, etc. Three hours running time, showing the glory of the Mechanicum's god-machines to the gritty, crushing horror of the poor Guardspersons experience. Jump back and forth as needed.]

Horus Heresy films - maybe in someone else's lifetime, I'll have to be satisfied with the books.

I think that for HH, the only way to do a story like that justice would be a series, not movies. There's just too much to tell to fit it into a movie franchise and have it make sense to the uninitiated and not shaft long time fans.

That being said, I think that something like Gaunt's Ghosts would make either a great film franchise, or something done in the style of Band of Brothers. It doesn't have anywhere near as much of a barrier to entry to the uninitiated, it wouldn't take anywhere near as much of an SFX budget (compared to other 40k stories at least), and would be manageable in live action.

The best chance at doing the Heresy at least some justice would be some sort of series like Rome, or the Sharpe series - basically give up on covering all of it in epic detail right away, there's just too many plotlines and plot beats you'd need to have, instead take some ground-level legionnaires and follow them closely, have them stumble around in the background of the important events and thus have a lens that is much more relatable for the audience through which they can be seen. Otherwise, the sheer scale of it would overwhelm the audience too much.

Start with some random anti-Xenos action pre-Istvaan to establish the setting and character, how big a deal Primarchs are and so on, devote the rest of the first season to the Dropsite massacre and the immediate aftermath. Have some loyalist main characters, Iron Hands among them to show the trauma, and some traitors as well, to have a core cast for both sides to get a nice A-B-main plot going, with occasional C and D plots as diversion. From there on, you can follow the basic beats of the dash to Terra, culminating in the Siege and perhaps even the Vengeful Spirit.

Rome was ok, but putting in as much effort as that would make it entertaining enough to keep tuned in for a while. I stopped watching after the first season.

As 40k is still ostensibly a game for kids, and it's gotten freaking long, a clone-wars type CGI cartoon is probably the best option.

Clone wars does a good job of addressing some of the more serious issues of war, power and rebellion while glossing over some of the harder aspects to keep it suitable for kids, a mix that GW has brewed for a long time.

Leave as books, at least then our imaginations can run riot within the story telling. If you let TV or film execs get their hands on it the whole thing will be ruined. It'll be the whole nonsense we had with lotr with Arwen driving off the ring wraiths, just to keep her part slightly interesting.

 AlphaFreds wrote:

Would the Heresy make a good film franchise?

first of all, nice shoebill stork. you have a good taste in animals.
second, I'm not sure about a 40k film to begin with. Judging how hollywood has treated other franchises, I wouldn't want a dumbed down HH movie for the wider public who would never watch it to begin with, that's why I often prefer fan films, as they are just fans making stuff they want to for other fans to like.