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At the start of this month Erasmus, the maker of the movie posted exiting news on his blog:

http://www.thelordinquisitor.com/blog/start-2012/

He says, "Shortly before Christmas I finally got an answer and it was more than positive To be honest I think I had the biggest smile in my face in the year 2011 I will not post any mails in my blog as this is a private conversation between GW and me, but what I can tell you is that GW loves Lordi and everything what me and my team created. So GW really wants to see this project finished and they want me to have a kind of license that allows me to make non commercial Warhammer 40.000 movies. I mean, how cool is that? I never thought that GW would be so cool to this project and this is beyond my expectations – now I don’t have to hide anymore with this project, but can look in a proper future for Lordi.

However GW told me that this is a promise for now only and they can not guarantee me that this really becomes true. They have to see for themselfes if that is possible legally with their IP. But they want to get this through and Im optimisitc that this will work So we still need to cross our fingers, but it looks really really good for The Lord Inquisitor"

Could 2012 be a fresh start for GW?

Im not sure if this had been posted, if so please simly delete the thread.

Hooray! I really want this guy to succeed, so here's hoping that GW isn't just blowing smoke in his ass.

That is awesome

Their licensing revenues seem to speak up for this. More money = more happy for GW ;P

It's been posted, and like I said there:

This is what happened with Damnatus. The guys in charge conferred with their local area managers, and they got the okay from them. They insisted that "GW supports us!"--and then GW Legal/Corporate shut them down.

Unless he's actually cleared it with GW legal, I would not hold my breath on this.

Yeah, I had a buddy that actually had solid financial backers and was willing to give GW the final yes/no on the script and GW told him not a chance. Granted this was the early 2000's but unless they've changed quite a bit I wouldn't hold my breath. Though they did allow Ultramarine so maybe things have changed...

Ultramarine was licensed, and basically GW's project.

It also did not feature any characters currently "in canon".

It could be that Damnatus didn't make it, because it was a live action movie that looked kinda cheapy. Maybe it was good for it's day as far as fan films go, but IMO if you compare the 2, lord Inquisitor shows off the IP a lot better. So, that could be one of the reasons why GW is letting them proceed.

Necros wrote:It could be that Damnatus didn't make it, because it was a live action movie that looked kinda cheapy. Maybe it was good for it's day as far as fan films go, but IMO if you compare the 2, lord Inquisitor shows off the IP a lot better. So, that could be one of the reasons why GW is letting them proceed.

Yup, can't have GW being associated with cheap live-action movies can we?

Now where's my copy of Inquisitor...?

It's a movie, being created in Germany, featuring a major character of 40k's universe(Lord Coteaz).

I cannot realistically see GW Legal saying "That's cool!" unless Germany's film laws have radically changed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Charax wrote:

Necros wrote:It could be that Damnatus didn't make it, because it was a live action movie that looked kinda cheapy. Maybe it was good for it's day as far as fan films go, but IMO if you compare the 2, lord Inquisitor shows off the IP a lot better. So, that could be one of the reasons why GW is letting them proceed.

Yup, can't have GW being associated with cheap live-action movies can we?

Now where's my copy of Inquisitor...?

Don't you dare mock Inquisitor!
I have fond memories of Andy Chambers showing that at the first Games Day I went to, after I had gotten to play on the massive 13th Black Crusade table at Baltimore.

Kanluwen wrote:It's been posted, and like I said there:

This is what happened with Damnatus. The guys in charge conferred with their local area managers, and they got the okay from them. They insisted that "GW supports us!"--and then GW Legal/Corporate shut them down.

Unless he's actually cleared it with GW legal, I would not hold my breath on this.

Sadly this.

Damnatus was even advertised in White Dwarf. Unofficial comments from GW are unofficial, they might discuss setting up a license, but later say no. GW like scuppering projects only after letting them develop, the ideology is that of maximising the overall loss to the 'infringer' is an incentive to others not to 'infringe'.
IIRC Dreamforge had friendly words with GW over heir titans, later when the molds were actually made the the titans going into production GW expressed a previous misunderstanding, and a C&D.

It could be that GW has grown a brain and seen projects like Lord Inquisitor for what they are, free advertising and greater fan immersion, but common sense is hard to find in that part of Nottingham.


Edit. To my heavy hearted dismay I learned its a German production made in Germany. This is bad news. Not that I don't like German fan stuff - I love Nehrim after all. However GW legal got very angsty over überreicht the German inalienable and non transferable artistic right. This meant that according to GW lawyers, yes the same really competent guys making a pigs ear of the case against Chapterhouse, GW would lose an element of control over its IP and therefore could not allow Damnatus to proceed no way, no how; C&D all the way, sorry but no negotiations. Nehrim doesn't bother Bethesda in spite of it being a German production and thus subject to überreicht, however Bethesda while the can be litigious, are also known for vision and clear thinking in business. If only the same could be saif of Games Workshop.

Damnatus was plain bad, but in addition the IP laws in Germany seem to be a bit wonky.

I just hope that this will be better than Ultramarines. But then again, that won't be hard to achieve.

Kanluwen wrote:
Don't you dare mock Inquisitor!
I have fond memories of Andy Chambers showing that at the first Games Day I went to, after I had gotten to play on the massive 13th Black Crusade table at Baltimore.

Who's mocking? I love Inquisitor, it was far better than Ultramarines.
...otherwise I wouldn't have bought a copy

If I remember right, wasn't Damnatus only advertised in the German White Dwarf at the time?

If GW does end up licencing the film, they will take a new turn for the better. Hopefully they will, but I can see why GW would want to shut the movie down.

I hate to be the negative nancy, but what I saw of Lord Inquisitor wasn't all that impressive.

The stills were good, but the actual animation felt a bit...stuttery in places. It was worse, if possible, than Ultramarine's.

Kanluwen wrote:If I remember right, wasn't Damnatus only advertised in the German White Dwarf at the time?

Which was a Games Workshop production and thus a GW brainfart. Its not like the guys in Nottingham didn't know about Damnatus. I can state for a flat fact that GW head office management at the time were looking at the website and watching the trailers; I have 'confessions'.

Orlanth wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:If I remember right, wasn't Damnatus only advertised in the German White Dwarf at the time?

Which was a Games Workshop production and thus a GW brainfart. Its not like the guys in Nottingham didn't know about Damnatus. I can state for a flat fact that GW head office management at the time were looking at the website and watching the trailers; I have 'confessions'.

Oh I'm sure they knew about it.

I'm just saying that it seemed more like something which the German GW folks were all excited about, while the head office was thinking "Greeeeeeeeeeeaaat...".

I don't think Inquistor counts anyway, since it was made before GW's target audience was even born

Inquisitor was made under license/by GW so nyah!

Kanluwen wrote:I hate to be the negative nancy, but what I saw of Lord Inquisitor wasn't all that impressive.

The stills were good, but the actual animation felt a bit...stuttery in places. It was worse, if possible, than Ultramarine's.

I agree 100% with this, there is a part when the inquisitor is walking in his armour and it looks kinda jumpy and robotic. But other scenes such as the baneblades and the space scenes look spectacular, I hope there is a good balance between the animation, unlike in the ultramarines movie: A part at the end where the flames could have been edited in by a teenager, and not a professional animation team.

Kanluwen wrote:I hate to be the negative nancy, but what I saw of Lord Inquisitor wasn't all that impressive.

The stills were good, but the actual animation felt a bit...stuttery in places. It was worse, if possible, than Ultramarine's.

You must have watched a different trailer than I just did. The animation looks excellent. I am very much looking forward to this release. Might even pay for it.

What are people expecting ,AAA film technology coming from a garage near you?

It looks great, let us hope the storyline is as good as the visuals. Allowing for what we got Damnatus should be forgiven let alone this production.

This would be truly awesome and would create feelings of goodwill from the fanbase if at all true.

Orlanth wrote:What are people expecting ,AAA film technology coming from a garage near you? It looks great, let us hope the storyline is as good as the visuals. Allowing for what we got Damnatus should be forgiven let alone this production.

And this is something that bugs me.

So it's "unacceptable" that Ultramarines had the stuttery animation and outdated visuals which come from the fact that it costs a lot to do animation for a 90 minute feature...but it's okay that a fan project has the same stuttery animation in parts, because the visuals in the teasers/demos look great?

The early WIP shots of Ultramarines "looked great" too. When it comes down to it, unless the Lord Inquisitor is like three minutes long--I don't see this level of quality for animations and visuals continuing if it's going to release within the next five years.

Caveat: Unless the guy gets a major break and gets a full studio at his disposal.

Great news, great looking project; I hope the script is as good as the visuals.

I think it perfectly acceptable. So far this guy is doing it because of his interest and love of the universe and paying for it out of his own pocket (presumably).

The Ultramarine movie was a paid studio that gave us lousy scenery the same spacemarine model for every character and charged premium for it.

Dude wtf in the emperor's stool is going on. First there are [possibly] leaked rules of an actual fun 40k game and now they're allowing blasphemous heretics to create 40k works without a good lawsuit up the rear end? It's like the top management of GW all went to AA or something. [Arseholes Anonymous]

Otherwise fantastic news. Absolutely fantastic.

A paid studio which seemingly doesn't outsource its animation, and is actually pretty small--and likely has legal copies of animation software.

Look. I'm not saying "Ultramarines" is a pinnacle of modern animation. However, I am saying that there's a huge difference between the animation quality of "direct to dvd" films like Ultramarines(which was done by a company which basically only did direct to dvd films) and the animated "shorts" which we see preceding their releases. There's also another huge gap between that which you'll see in big-name properties. To give an example?
Blur Studios, the people responsible for the three Old Republic cinematics("Hope", "Deceived", and "Return") had an obscene amount of money and manpower to do those cinematics.

And they still only produced three over the course of the Old Republic's announcement("Deceived" being the first, "Hope" being the second, and "Return" being the final one--it's also the intro video to the game) until the time it finally released.

To expect that level of animation in a 90 minute feature by what amounts to an independent studio is absurd.

The real problem to consider is why Games Workshop did not try to get someone like Blur Studios to do "Ultramarines"...but I can already tell you the answer to that.
It would have cost an obscene amount to do a full length movie.

Yeah!
Inquisitor looks great for a fan-made especially.