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I have tried to research this but got nothing. What has happened since the release of ultramarines the movie. Did it make money? Did it flop? Is the Studio still going and working on stuff or has it been wound down? Anyone know?

It would be hard to find a film that was marketed and released in a manner any worse than Codex Pictures did with Ultramarines. I was actually prepared to buy a normal priced DVD, but as this never appeared I watched it on youtube in the end (yes I know, bad Flashman). Given that the film was also not very good, I'd be astounded if they were still solvent.

Didn't they go on to make 'John Carter?

Necroagogo wrote:Didn't they go on to make 'John Carter?

Since when was Disney spelled Codex?

Platuan4th wrote:

Necroagogo wrote:Didn't they go on to make 'John Carter?

Since when was Disney spelled Codex?

Guess I should have put a in my post ...

I thought Wall-e was about Necrons and `A bug's Life` was about 'nids, `Monsters Inc` was for Chaos, 'Ratatouille' was Skaven and `Toy Story` pretty much everyone else? This new one `Brave` looks like Macragge is staking a claim on Pixar.

Mickey Mouse is a front for Skaven...Having taken children to Disneyland Paris, I revised my opinion of Forgeworld to relatively inexpensive compared to the `House of Mouse`. Dreams come true my ass, the only person that had a dream come true was my VISA card.

So as no-one seems to know I'm guessing Codex Pictures suffered exterminatus. Shame really, with a bit of effort and input in the second film they could have been Killer. Why they went with Ultrasmurf, when there is Deathwatch, LotD and Grey Knights which almost everyone loves because of their homoerotic uber-masculine hardcore death merchant badassery, rather than Roboute's Ass Hattery I will never know.

I'm pretty sure that I saw Ultramarines being advertised recently though I forget where, plus it was in WD a few times in the last 3-4 months as prize give-aways and the like IIRC.

The chapter chosen was irrelevant. I'm even prepared to ignore the not particularly great animation and poor attention to detail (e.g. no footstep noises as the marines clunked along). No, the main problem was the script. It was a poorly conceived plot that couldn't work within the 70 minute running time.

The film would have been better served doing something simple e.g. a squad making desperate last stand whilst waiting for extraction.

There's a good 40K film / tv series waiting to be made, but it needs a strong writing team who can focus on developing plot and character. Looking at stuff like Battlestar Galactica and Game of Thrones, I'm confident that someone will do it right one day.

Oh and you need to tell it from a human (i.e. IG) perspective. Space Marines are basically an army of Captain Americas, so you need real humans to serve as a frame of reference.

Gaunts Ghosts, would be ripe for a adaptation.

I would have loved to buy it at a decent price, but a year after it came out, I heard my friend had a copy and I just watched that.

The idea of releasing it only as a collector's edition and not making a normal release for months afterwards was a horrible move. It just convinced people to either pirate it or watch their friend's copy.

Absolutionis wrote:I would have loved to buy it at a decent price, but a year after it came out, I heard my friend had a copy and I just watched that.

The idea of releasing it only as a collector's edition and not making a normal release for months afterwards was a horrible move. It just convinced people to either pirate it or watch their friend's copy.

Exactly. It isnt very "Collectors edition" and "special" if its the only one they will sell. I was going to buy it as well, then when I saw all I could buy was an expensive collectors edition I didnt want I backed out.
Watched it with a friend, it was terrible and made no sense.

mwnciboo wrote:Gaunts Ghosts, would be ripe for a adaptation.

I would love to see a Horus Heresy tv show or string of movies. Start with the Emperor reuniting terra and creating the primarchs. There is so much drama in the HH that it could last forever.

Gaunts Ghosts would be rather neat also, Titan "God Machine" following around Ervin Hekate would and I think could do well also.

Remember the Anime - Matrix? Maybe they could do some Manga type animation, it would have to be a Brit company and very gothic. But maybe grab a few japanese animators for their expertise, Anime is a bit too clean and cutesy, even the more extreme end. Something like Van Helsing or Gungrave with a heavy 40k twist? Voice acting like in Ultramarines and it would be awesome.

Like this...




Get rid of the music, change the weapons, get rid of the cute chick for a fethed up Guardsman and gothic it up a bit but it's almost there?

Backdrops = Good.
Animation = Good
Gorelevel = Good
Weaponfire = Good
Hand to Hand = Good

Cheaper than CGI too. Not sure why GW which is now gaining on the Stock Market doesn't invest in an Animation Division. I would buy this, it's cheaper quicker and more in keeping with the hobby than CGI?

the problem with having space marines is there not human so you have problems conecting with them i would love to see somthing like this

The show is set in a small branch of the adeptus administraturn Wernham Hogg (where "life is stationery"), in the Slogh Trading Estate on the planet ennui. Slogh is a star port immortalised for its lack of appeal by John Betjeman in his poem "Slogh" ("Come, virus bombs and fall on Slough/It isn't fit for humans now..."). The show has no laugh track and is in the mockumentary style, devised at a time when documentaries such asSegmentum and A Life of Grim were popular.

The office is headed by Departmento Prefectus Davidos Brent and his sevitor assistant , Garoth Keenan , who is also a lieutenant in the reservist PDF. Much of the series' comedic success stems from Brent, who frequently makes attempts to win favour with his employees and peers with embarrassing or disastrous results. Brent's character flaws are used to comic effect, including numerous verbal gaffes, unconscious racism, sexism and other social faux-pas.

The other main plot line of the series, and many of the more human elements found therein, come from the unassuming Subordinate Tim, whose relationship with bored Scribe Dawn Tinsli is a major arc in the series. Their flirtation soon builds to a mutual romantic attraction, despite her engagement to the dour and laddish warehouse Menial , Lee.

You skipped the best part, when E.S.W.A.T comes in with their GUGES-D Landmates ( yeah I am a huge Appleseed freak, I wanted all my Tau sits to look like the D )

I think you are on the right track though, goth it up and have some somber music playing instead of techno and we would almost have a winner. It would all come down to the writing. (and that is where the cgi appleseed failed big time.) skip to 3:18

The problem with 40k is that it's appeal comes from it's hyper-reality, over the top visceral gothic nature. No one cares about fluffy stuff, it's about grim blood shed big guns and shredding your enemies. The subject of genitalia doesn't even feature on SM's or even in their fluff. It's like sex, love etc is avoided, Abnett does a good line in human stories with some love/ sex and lots of violence. But most authors avoid it, and the most sex you see in GW stuff is "Sisters with big busts" and naming the occasional Tyranid "Old one eye".

@FabMike I would call you a Weeabo right now, but I have an entire collection of Gundam Wing etc. But most important of all is my Hayao Miyazaki collection. I love it, absolutely love it, Disney lost it's way in the 90's but Miyazaki was on form throughout, Lasseter left Disney and is a very close friend of him and even oversaw some of his work (Porco Rosso I believe and others) and even their dubbing.

Lasseter built up Pixar and returned to Disney taking over everything. Miyazaki, like Shigeru Miyamoto, or Akira Kurosawa have all changed the world in such massive ways and have been given so little credit by the western media. It's an insult that so many great Japanese films get re-made as a American Trash films.

I could have predicted "John Carter" would be a giagantic stinking t*rd, the title alone is awful. It's all the worst CGI sequences of the Star Wars Prequels rolled into a long turgid labouring constipated crap.

OT - Films are not formulaic, neither should they always end well or positively? Life doesn't end nicely does it? I love Asian cinema because of this, Western cinema is so formulaic and dull. I wept like a child after watching Grave of the Fireflies, and the only other film that has done that to me was the opening 10minutes of PIXAR's UP. I am not alone in this Tom Hanks said the same on a recent interview...

Codex Pictures as a production company was due to be liquidated last year.

However this is quite normal for small production companies of this type.

Codex was set up as a company to specifically produce the Ultramarines movie and it's quite normal to then liquidate the company and set up a new one under a different name.

This allows them to seek new funding for future projects from things like the British Film Foundation under a different name.

The team that created Ultramarines still exist and still work together but I don't know what projects they are currently working on.

When I spoke to the producers they said they would very much like to continue working with GW, but that future movies would more than likely still feature Space Marines, mainly because most of the modelling and animation was already done (shudder...)

In terms of the film's success, I don't honestly know but it is very doubtful it was a financial failure.

The limited edition boxed set sold very well, it got a Blu-Ray release and the soundtrack has sold very well.

There was also supposed to be a movie art book produced at some point and I would imagine this would also be successful.

Bear in mind that GW had no financial input in the project, the whole thing was self financed by Codex, but was done on a very small budget for this type of movie.

I was also surprised the last time I spoke to Dan Abnett (whilst asking what it was like to write about Ultramarines again in Know No Fear) that he was obliged to write the movie script, and thought that Graham McNeil would have been more suitable.

The directors of Codex Pictures are also embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with Anchor Bay Entertainment over the Ultramarines movie.

link here:http://www.iptrademarkattorney.com/2011/06/copyright-ultramarines-warhammer-40000-boardgame-movie-lawsuit-sues-license-ultramarines.html

(interestingly it mentions a further 7 movies - there was no mention of this when I spoke to the producers)

Anchor Bay are a film distribution company, and early in the Ultramarines movie development Codex (allegedly) signed an exclusive distribution deal with Anchor Bay.

However Codex wanted the DVD to contain the graphic novel and come in the limited edition tin, and decided it would be more cost effective to do all of this in house, and to use Codex Pictures to distribute it.

It's quite unusual for a production company to do this, and may be the reason why the original DVD release was a bit of a fiasco.

However Anchor Bay apparently were not informed that they wouldn't be involved any further, and are now suing for a breach of contract.

Apparently Codex had simply forgotten about the distribution agreement and it is now due to go to court.

Anchor Bay are a massive company, so if Codex did make a profit out of Ultramarines this may get eaten up by their legal costs and any damages they may have to pay.

Didn't know any of that, very informative post Straight Silver.

No worries, this link should also give you a bit more info:

http://companycheck.co.uk/company/06720927

Looks like they made a loss of £164K but have assets worth £1.9 million, and owe about £11k, so once liquidated will have made a profit of about £1.5 million.

Not bad at all all things considered. GW only made £2 million from the Space Marine Game (that was their licensing payment) and that would have shifted a hell of a lot more units than the Ultramarines movie.

This is encouraging, it means that if GW set up their own production company they already have writers and artists on the payroll, and have their own distribution channels set up, so if they wanted to could turn a decent profit.

Considering how well Black Library is doing, and that they were going to drop that at one point I think we could at some point see GW producing their own in-house movies.

No doubt if Lord Inquisitor does well then this will be even more likely.

Could you imagine Matt Ward writing movie scripts.....

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:

Could you imagine Matt Ward writing movie scripts.....

I don't have to imagine. I just watch a film directed by Michael Bay.

Flashman wrote:

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:

Could you imagine Matt Ward writing movie scripts.....

I don't have to imagine. I just watch a film directed by Michael Bay.

Zing!!! /thread =o]

Flashman wrote:

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:

Could you imagine Matt Ward writing movie scripts.....

I don't have to imagine. I just watch a film directed by Michael Bay.

It's been a while since i've laughed this hard, i think i might have ruptured something vital.

mwnciboo wrote:

Flashman wrote:

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:

Could you imagine Matt Ward writing movie scripts.....

I don't have to imagine. I just watch a film directed by Michael Bay.

It's been a while since i've laughed this hard, i think i might have ruptured something vital.

I come for the Finecast complaining, but I stay for the people =o]

Necroagogo wrote:Didn't they go on to make 'John Carter?

I got this immediately and was quite amused.