Why has there never been a 40k movie?

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**Arandmoor**

Gamgee wrote:
Also I've actually studied film school movies (and briefly been in) and your not going to win people over by making big epic movies. A movie has ot be about stories and character first.

Spoiler:

I would focus on one man and his family and it would be almost more of a horror movie in a just destroyed city. Off in the distance you can hear vague signs of fighting once in awhile and strange horror noises.

Power failure at the doors means they can't get out and are stuck in the hab complex with something that got in during the fighting.

Slowly but surely this thing is picking them off one by one and they pray to the Emperor for his angels to save their world to no avail and so he begins to get that grit any hero would. He wants to try and kill this deamon from beyond to save his family.

We don't see anything big except the city that surrounds the area and maybe a brief glimps of some shooting in the distance. This movie is intimate and we get to know thi sman and his families problems they had even before now.

Your regular audience member has no idea how much this universe sucks and what better what to do that than by showing an every man.

Against all odds he confronts this deamon and by the end of the movie and at a high cost to his family and in managed to slay it but he is all alone now and sad. Food and water is running out and the air is becoming poisonous.

Then at the very end of the movie he is ready to die in this grim dark universe just another forgotten man. The hab doors are forced open and we see an Inquisitor with a team of acolytes greets him and is astonished seeing the man had managed to kill a deamon. Then he is taken away and the only thing the Inquisitor will say is that it is clear the Emperor has marked him for a different fate.

Then as the movie series goes on we get bigger and bigger. It's been many years since that first encounter and a long time of service to his mentor and savoir. The second movie is him being a high ranking acolyte and now he is interacting more with Imperial society in this movie. HE is trying to uncover who would have even summoned such deamons in the first place. We might see statuary of space marines at this point and perhaps brief glimpses on posters but alas they still will not show up to save them. By the end of the movie it's clear that a chaos space marine was causing the cults to form and he has already called his friends. The Inquisitor dies at this point and only one or two of the acolytes survives. He appoints the hero as the new Inquisitor and tasks him with saving the world.

The third film is only a year or two later when the full scale invasion begins. He hopes his warnings got out in time and that a dead inquisitor was sufficient evidence of the severity of the situation. For most of the movie it's just the IG and the Inquisitor and one badass commissar trying to hold back the invasion of deamons and cultists. In the second movie we seen the power of a single chaos space marine and now entire war bands have arrived and intend to summon a greater deamon.

In the third act in their last final stand they finally get a communication from the heavens. Reinforcements are on the way and we get to see the drop pods of the space marines making first contact with the enemy. We see massive landers bringing in more IG than you can shake a stick at and some Thunderhawks screaming overhead shooting down deamons.

This way we don't bombard the audience too much with world building. Look at the dark universe movie as an example of how not to do this. Movies need to be very focused and small set pieces.

You have to slowly build up into a cinematic universe the public is familiar with. You need to earn it like marvel.

Then once all of that is done we can go bigger more often, but again you don't always want to bombard the audience with that. Look at how bad the warcraft movie was it tried to be too epic too fast and no one knew what was going on except the warcraft fans.

Also never add too much villains and bad guys into a movie. It really dilutes it. Look at amazing spider man 2.

Audiences need to always care about who they are cheering for or hating on (memorable villains needed).

Anyways those are my hypothetical 40k movies I would make to kick off the universe.

This.

DC had the right idea with Man of Steel, and got ahead of themselves in Batman Vs. Superman. Don't do that. Don't go too big too fast, and use the grimdark as a backdrop rather than as a focus. Make the movies about people trying their hardest to be points of light in darkness, and make sure there is always hope. If you focus on the grimdark above all else, you won't get a good story. It's part of the reason Warhammer 40k has so many crappy novels.

A 40k Movie needs to NOT be about 40k. It needs to be about people in the 40k universe.

And no, I don't think they could adapt any existing novels. Even the Eisenhorn novels were crap.

Any 40k movie would have to feature a completely new cast. No "famous cameos" of known characters. And the stakes would have to be small. Localized. If it were me I'd start the film on an idealized world rather than some overdeveloped, dark hell-scape of a hive world. Make the world look like an idealized earth in 100 years if we didn't totally mess up the environment.

Honestly, if I were in charge, I wouldn't even worry about the 40k universe backdrop. Make sure the films are cognizant of where they take place, but save most of it for the finale. I'd use Alien and Aliens as a model.

The first movie would be a horror film featuring normal people in extraordinary, horrifying circumstances.
The second movie would be an action-thriller film featuring capable, above-average heroes in over their heads (did I hear someone say, "kill-team"?).
The third movie would be the balls-to-the-wall war film featuring 40K in all it's glory. However, it would still focus on the trials of the main character from the first film as (s)he tries to salvage whatever was possible of their old life while the bombs were dropping.

I'd personally make the films about a Tyranid invasion. I think they're less confusing than chaos daemons. And you'd be able to draw parallels to much more popular films than Event Horizon and the game Doom (there was no movie. It never happened)

**CthuluIsSpy**

A movie about a bunch of survivors dealing a necron invasion would be interesting. Or a film about an investigation about a cult.
I think the focus on space marines is to the settings detriment in terms of narration, tbh, because it will always be about supermen doing supermen things.

The focus should have been on the Imperial Guard, ordinary humans who have to deal with horrible crap to survive.

**Desubot**

Arandmoor wrote:
Gamgee wrote:
Also I've actually studied film school movies (and briefly been in) and your not going to win people over by making big epic movies. A movie has ot be about stories and character first.

Spoiler:

I would focus on one man and his family and it would be almost more of a horror movie in a just destroyed city. Off in the distance you can hear vague signs of fighting once in awhile and strange horror noises.

Power failure at the doors means they can't get out and are stuck in the hab complex with something that got in during the fighting.

Slowly but surely this thing is picking them off one by one and they pray to the Emperor for his angels to save their world to no avail and so he begins to get that grit any hero would. He wants to try and kill this deamon from beyond to save his family.

We don't see anything big except the city that surrounds the area and maybe a brief glimps of some shooting in the distance. This movie is intimate and we get to know thi sman and his families problems they had even before now.

Your regular audience member has no idea how much this universe sucks and what better what to do that than by showing an every man.

Against all odds he confronts this deamon and by the end of the movie and at a high cost to his family and in managed to slay it but he is all alone now and sad. Food and water is running out and the air is becoming poisonous.

Then at the very end of the movie he is ready to die in this grim dark universe just another forgotten man. The hab doors are forced open and we see an Inquisitor with a team of acolytes greets him and is astonished seeing the man had managed to kill a deamon. Then he is taken away and the only thing the Inquisitor will say is that it is clear the Emperor has marked him for a different fate.

Then as the movie series goes on we get bigger and bigger. It's been many years since that first encounter and a long time of service to his mentor and savoir. The second movie is him being a high ranking acolyte and now he is interacting more with Imperial society in this movie. HE is trying to uncover who would have even summoned such deamons in the first place. We might see statuary of space marines at this point and perhaps brief glimpses on posters but alas they still will not show up to save them. By the end of the movie it's clear that a chaos space marine was causing the cults to form and he has already called his friends. The Inquisitor dies at this point and only one or two of the acolytes survives. He appoints the hero as the new Inquisitor and tasks him with saving the world.

The third film is only a year or two later when the full scale invasion begins. He hopes his warnings got out in time and that a dead inquisitor was sufficient evidence of the severity of the situation. For most of the movie it's just the IG and the Inquisitor and one badass commissar trying to hold back the invasion of deamons and cultists. In the second movie we seen the power of a single chaos space marine and now entire war bands have arrived and intend to summon a greater deamon.

In the third act in their last final stand they finally get a communication from the heavens. Reinforcements are on the way and we get to see the drop pods of the space marines making first contact with the enemy. We see massive landers bringing in more IG than you can shake a stick at and some Thunderhawks screaming overhead shooting down deamons.

This way we don't bombard the audience too much with world building. Look at the dark universe movie as an example of how not to do this. Movies need to be very focused and small set pieces.

You have to slowly build up into a cinematic universe the public is familiar with. You need to earn it like marvel.

Then once all of that is done we can go bigger more often, but again you don't always want to bombard the audience with that. Look at how bad the warcraft movie was it tried to be too epic too fast and no one knew what was going on except the warcraft fans.

Also never add too much villains and bad guys into a movie. It really dilutes it. Look at amazing spider man 2.

Audiences need to always care about who they are cheering for or hating on (memorable villains needed).

Anyways those are my hypothetical 40k movies I would make to kick off the universe.

This.

DC had the right idea with Man of Steel, and got ahead of themselves in Batman Vs. Superman. Don't do that. Don't go too big too fast, and use the grimdark as a backdrop rather than as a focus. Make the movies about people trying their hardest to be points of light in darkness, and make sure there is always hope. If you focus on the grimdark above all else, you won't get a good story. It's part of the reason Warhammer 40k has so many crappy novels.

A 40k Movie needs to NOT be about 40k. It needs to be about people in the 40k universe.

And no, I don't think they could adapt any existing novels. Even the Eisenhorn novels were crap.

Any 40k movie would have to feature a completely new cast. No "famous cameos" of known characters. And the stakes would have to be small. Localized. If it were me I'd start the film on an idealized world rather than some overdeveloped, dark hell-scape of a hive world. Make the world look like an idealized earth in 100 years if we didn't totally mess up the environment.

Honestly, if I were in charge, I wouldn't even worry about the 40k universe backdrop. Make sure the films are cognizant of where they take place, but save most of it for the finale. I'd use Alien and Aliens as a model.

The first movie would be a horror film featuring normal people in extraordinary, horrifying circumstances.
The second movie would be an action-thriller film featuring capable, above-average heroes in over their heads (did I hear someone say, "kill-team"?).
The third movie would be the balls-to-the-wall war film featuring 40K in all it's glory. However, it would still focus on the trials of the main character from the first film as (s)he tries to salvage whatever was possible of their old life while the bombs were dropping.

I'd personally make the films about a Tyranid invasion. I think they're less confusing than chaos daemons. And you'd be able to draw parallels to much more popular films than Event Horizon and the game Doom (there was no movie. It never happened)

A nid invasion would be cool for that trilogy. Gene stealers in a system, followed by deathwatch coming in to try and clean it up, then an epic battle as the sky rains nids. i think nids would be easier for normal people to understand for sure.

Even horizon was an awesome movie.

**agnosto**

CthuluIsSpy wrote:
A movie about a bunch of survivors dealing a necron invasion would be interesting. Or a film about an investigation about a cult.
I think the focus on space marines is to the settings detriment in terms of narration, tbh, because it will always be about supermen doing supermen things.

The focus should have been on the Imperial Guard, ordinary humans who have to deal with horrible crap to survive.

So, basically the last Terminator movie.

**agnosto**

Desubot wrote:
Arandmoor wrote:
Gamgee wrote:
Also I've actually studied film school movies (and briefly been in) and your not going to win people over by making big epic movies. A movie has ot be about stories and character first.

Spoiler:

I would focus on one man and his family and it would be almost more of a horror movie in a just destroyed city. Off in the distance you can hear vague signs of fighting once in awhile and strange horror noises.

Power failure at the doors means they can't get out and are stuck in the hab complex with something that got in during the fighting.

Slowly but surely this thing is picking them off one by one and they pray to the Emperor for his angels to save their world to no avail and so he begins to get that grit any hero would. He wants to try and kill this deamon from beyond to save his family.

We don't see anything big except the city that surrounds the area and maybe a brief glimps of some shooting in the distance. This movie is intimate and we get to know thi sman and his families problems they had even before now.

Your regular audience member has no idea how much this universe sucks and what better what to do that than by showing an every man.

Against all odds he confronts this deamon and by the end of the movie and at a high cost to his family and in managed to slay it but he is all alone now and sad. Food and water is running out and the air is becoming poisonous.

Then at the very end of the movie he is ready to die in this grim dark universe just another forgotten man. The hab doors are forced open and we see an Inquisitor with a team of acolytes greets him and is astonished seeing the man had managed to kill a deamon. Then he is taken away and the only thing the Inquisitor will say is that it is clear the Emperor has marked him for a different fate.

Then as the movie series goes on we get bigger and bigger. It's been many years since that first encounter and a long time of service to his mentor and savoir. The second movie is him being a high ranking acolyte and now he is interacting more with Imperial society in this movie. HE is trying to uncover who would have even summoned such deamons in the first place. We might see statuary of space marines at this point and perhaps brief glimpses on posters but alas they still will not show up to save them. By the end of the movie it's clear that a chaos space marine was causing the cults to form and he has already called his friends. The Inquisitor dies at this point and only one or two of the acolytes survives. He appoints the hero as the new Inquisitor and tasks him with saving the world.

The third film is only a year or two later when the full scale invasion begins. He hopes his warnings got out in time and that a dead inquisitor was sufficient evidence of the severity of the situation. For most of the movie it's just the IG and the Inquisitor and one badass commissar trying to hold back the invasion of deamons and cultists. In the second movie we seen the power of a single chaos space marine and now entire war bands have arrived and intend to summon a greater deamon.

In the third act in their last final stand they finally get a communication from the heavens. Reinforcements are on the way and we get to see the drop pods of the space marines making first contact with the enemy. We see massive landers bringing in more IG than you can shake a stick at and some Thunderhawks screaming overhead shooting down deamons.

This way we don't bombard the audience too much with world building. Look at the dark universe movie as an example of how not to do this. Movies need to be very focused and small set pieces.

You have to slowly build up into a cinematic universe the public is familiar with. You need to earn it like marvel.

Then once all of that is done we can go bigger more often, but again you don't always want to bombard the audience with that. Look at how bad the warcraft movie was it tried to be too epic too fast and no one knew what was going on except the warcraft fans.

Also never add too much villains and bad guys into a movie. It really dilutes it. Look at amazing spider man 2.

Audiences need to always care about who they are cheering for or hating on (memorable villains needed).

Anyways those are my hypothetical 40k movies I would make to kick off the universe.

This.

DC had the right idea with Man of Steel, and got ahead of themselves in Batman Vs. Superman. Don't do that. Don't go too big too fast, and use the grimdark as a backdrop rather than as a focus. Make the movies about people trying their hardest to be points of light in darkness, and make sure there is always hope. If you focus on the grimdark above all else, you won't get a good story. It's part of the reason Warhammer 40k has so many crappy novels.

A 40k Movie needs to NOT be about 40k. It needs to be about people in the 40k universe.

And no, I don't think they could adapt any existing novels. Even the Eisenhorn novels were crap.

Any 40k movie would have to feature a completely new cast. No "famous cameos" of known characters. And the stakes would have to be small. Localized. If it were me I'd start the film on an idealized world rather than some overdeveloped, dark hell-scape of a hive world. Make the world look like an idealized earth in 100 years if we didn't totally mess up the environment.

Honestly, if I were in charge, I wouldn't even worry about the 40k universe backdrop. Make sure the films are cognizant of where they take place, but save most of it for the finale. I'd use Alien and Aliens as a model.

The first movie would be a horror film featuring normal people in extraordinary, horrifying circumstances.
The second movie would be an action-thriller film featuring capable, above-average heroes in over their heads (did I hear someone say, "kill-team"?).
The third movie would be the balls-to-the-wall war film featuring 40K in all it's glory. However, it would still focus on the trials of the main character from the first film as (s)he tries to salvage whatever was possible of their old life while the bombs were dropping.

I'd personally make the films about a Tyranid invasion. I think they're less confusing than chaos daemons. And you'd be able to draw parallels to much more popular films than Event Horizon and the game Doom (there was no movie. It never happened)

A nid invasion would be cool for that trilogy. Gene stealers in a system, followed by deathwatch coming in to try and clean it up, then an epic battle as the sky rains nids. i think nids would be easier for normal people to understand for sure.

Even horizon was an awesome movie.

So, Rogue 1 with bugs instead of Empire, including the terminatus destruction of the planet.

**Desubot**

agnosto wrote:

So, Rogue 1 with bugs instead of Empire, including the terminatus destruction of the planet.

What and how so?

id think its more like cloverfield mixed with men in black

**agnosto**

Desubot wrote:
agnosto wrote:

So, Rogue 1 with bugs instead of Empire, including the terminatus destruction of the planet.

What and how so?

id think its more like cloverfield mixed with men in black

Yeah, I was thinking that too. But then my brain ran forward to the end with the planet getting blown up.

To quote Sigourney Weaver from Aliens; "I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure."

**VictorVonTzeentch**

Make a movie about an Inquisitor, in the vein of Se7en.

**EnTyme**

Arandmoor wrote:
Gamgee wrote:
Also I've actually studied film school movies (and briefly been in) and your not going to win people over by making big epic movies. A movie has ot be about stories and character first.

Spoiler:

I would focus on one man and his family and it would be almost more of a horror movie in a just destroyed city. Off in the distance you can hear vague signs of fighting once in awhile and strange horror noises.

Power failure at the doors means they can't get out and are stuck in the hab complex with something that got in during the fighting.

Slowly but surely this thing is picking them off one by one and they pray to the Emperor for his angels to save their world to no avail and so he begins to get that grit any hero would. He wants to try and kill this deamon from beyond to save his family.

We don't see anything big except the city that surrounds the area and maybe a brief glimps of some shooting in the distance. This movie is intimate and we get to know thi sman and his families problems they had even before now.

Your regular audience member has no idea how much this universe sucks and what better what to do that than by showing an every man.

Against all odds he confronts this deamon and by the end of the movie and at a high cost to his family and in managed to slay it but he is all alone now and sad. Food and water is running out and the air is becoming poisonous.

Then at the very end of the movie he is ready to die in this grim dark universe just another forgotten man. The hab doors are forced open and we see an Inquisitor with a team of acolytes greets him and is astonished seeing the man had managed to kill a deamon. Then he is taken away and the only thing the Inquisitor will say is that it is clear the Emperor has marked him for a different fate.

Then as the movie series goes on we get bigger and bigger. It's been many years since that first encounter and a long time of service to his mentor and savoir. The second movie is him being a high ranking acolyte and now he is interacting more with Imperial society in this movie. HE is trying to uncover who would have even summoned such deamons in the first place. We might see statuary of space marines at this point and perhaps brief glimpses on posters but alas they still will not show up to save them. By the end of the movie it's clear that a chaos space marine was causing the cults to form and he has already called his friends. The Inquisitor dies at this point and only one or two of the acolytes survives. He appoints the hero as the new Inquisitor and tasks him with saving the world.

The third film is only a year or two later when the full scale invasion begins. He hopes his warnings got out in time and that a dead inquisitor was sufficient evidence of the severity of the situation. For most of the movie it's just the IG and the Inquisitor and one badass commissar trying to hold back the invasion of deamons and cultists. In the second movie we seen the power of a single chaos space marine and now entire war bands have arrived and intend to summon a greater deamon.

In the third act in their last final stand they finally get a communication from the heavens. Reinforcements are on the way and we get to see the drop pods of the space marines making first contact with the enemy. We see massive landers bringing in more IG than you can shake a stick at and some Thunderhawks screaming overhead shooting down deamons.

This way we don't bombard the audience too much with world building. Look at the dark universe movie as an example of how not to do this. Movies need to be very focused and small set pieces.

You have to slowly build up into a cinematic universe the public is familiar with. You need to earn it like marvel.

Then once all of that is done we can go bigger more often, but again you don't always want to bombard the audience with that. Look at how bad the warcraft movie was it tried to be too epic too fast and no one knew what was going on except the warcraft fans.

Also never add too much villains and bad guys into a movie. It really dilutes it. Look at amazing spider man 2.

Audiences need to always care about who they are cheering for or hating on (memorable villains needed).

Anyways those are my hypothetical 40k movies I would make to kick off the universe.

This.

DC had the right idea with Man of Steel, and got ahead of themselves in Batman Vs. Superman. Don't do that. Don't go too big too fast, and use the grimdark as a backdrop rather than as a focus. Make the movies about people trying their hardest to be points of light in darkness, and make sure there is always hope. If you focus on the grimdark above all else, you won't get a good story. It's part of the reason Warhammer 40k has so many crappy novels.

A 40k Movie needs to NOT be about 40k. It needs to be about people in the 40k universe.

And no, I don't think they could adapt any existing novels. Even the Eisenhorn novels were crap.

Any 40k movie would have to feature a completely new cast. No "famous cameos" of known characters. And the stakes would have to be small. Localized. If it were me I'd start the film on an idealized world rather than some overdeveloped, dark hell-scape of a hive world. Make the world look like an idealized earth in 100 years if we didn't totally mess up the environment.

Honestly, if I were in charge, I wouldn't even worry about the 40k universe backdrop. Make sure the films are cognizant of where they take place, but save most of it for the finale. I'd use Alien and Aliens as a model.

The first movie would be a horror film featuring normal people in extraordinary, horrifying circumstances.
The second movie would be an action-thriller film featuring capable, above-average heroes in over their heads (did I hear someone say, "kill-team"?).
The third movie would be the balls-to-the-wall war film featuring 40K in all it's glory. However, it would still focus on the trials of the main character from the first film as (s)he tries to salvage whatever was possible of their old life while the bombs were dropping.

I'd personally make the films about a Tyranid invasion. I think they're less confusing than chaos daemons. And you'd be able to draw parallels to much more popular films than Event Horizon and the game Doom (there was no movie. It never happened)

1st film: A scavenger crew from a mining world locates a Space Hulk entering the system. They leap into action to be the first to explore its dark, cramped corridors for lost technology. Slowly, they are picked off one by one. They are not alone. Film ends in a mad dash back to a still-active lifeboat with a horde of Genestealers in hot pursuit. The last two survivors begin the long journey home to Ghosar Quintus.
2nd film: growth of the Genestealer cult.
3rd film: Tyranid invasion of Ghosar Quintus.

Sorry. Only able to flesh out the first film to any degree at this time. I'll think more one how 2 and 3 could develop. Feel free to add.

**Retrogamer0001**

Robert Downey Jr. as Ciaphas Cain?

**Desubot**

Retrogamer0001 wrote:
Robert Downey Jr. as Ciaphas Cain?

Escape from Armageddon?

**Thargrim**

licclerich wrote:
As the background is visually rich it seems the idael subject for a movie, so why has no one made one for the cinema?

For it to be good it would require an immense budget, solid director and cast...the chances of all those things coming together for an overall kind of obscure universe is not likely right now. Maybe in 10-20 years when movies are even more burnt out than they are becoming...maybe by then people will be tired of avengers, JL, and superheroes being regurgitated over and over.

**Arandmoor**

Thargrim wrote:
licclerich wrote:
As the background is visually rich it seems the idael subject for a movie, so why has no one made one for the cinema?

For it to be good it would require an immense budget

Never true.

The most amazing films are made by directors with nothing but a neat idea, a ton of passion, a good cast, and a budget large enough to make a movie, but small enough to force them to be creative. It's why I point to Alien as a template film.

**Gamgee**

Thargrim wrote:
licclerich wrote:
As the background is visually rich it seems the idael subject for a movie, so why has no one made one for the cinema?

For it to be good it would require an immense budget, solid director and cast...the chances of all those things coming together for an overall kind of obscure universe is not likely right now. Maybe in 10-20 years when movies are even more burnt out than they are becoming...maybe by then people will be tired of avengers, JL, and superheroes being regurgitated over and over.

Not necessarily true. As pointed out you could have a planet near earth like as the setting just with some minor gothic architectural nods here and there to show something is off about this world.

Alternatively it could be a small farming village and in the distance you can see the massive towering cities and gothic architecture of the main city and it's just never explained really. This way the CGI budget would be really low as you only need to have a few establishing background shots. Once the war starts and darkness comes maybe some shots of the city on fire, but those are relatively speaking easy things to do from a budget perspective.

From then on it wouldn't take too much to get some old 80's cars and tractors and mod them up a little to look Imperial in design with some icons. Then some props for around the small farming community so maybe a small shrine they prey too. After that you could easily film it in grungy dirty buildings and make people think it's the grim dark home. The cast would also be small, but I would try and get one bigger actor perhaps for the Inquisitor role near the end to build up to the bigger franchise.

The biggest budget sink would then be left to the alien or deamon. Personally I think a futuristic space deamon is a lot more memorable than just another movie with an alien invasion in it. It's a unique take science fiction compared to now and one of the selling points from a movie perspective (as much as I like my Tau).

**Thargrim**

Arandmoor wrote:
Thargrim wrote:
licclerich wrote:
As the background is visually rich it seems the idael subject for a movie, so why has no one made one for the cinema?

For it to be good it would require an immense budget

Never true.

The most amazing films are made by directors with nothing but a neat idea, a ton of passion, a good cast, and a budget large enough to make a movie, but small enough to force them to be creative. It's why I point to Alien as a template film.

Maybe as a type of arthouse movie on a smaller scale, but when I thought 40k movie the first thing that came to mind was thousands of warriors on screen and immense CGI titans and an epic story spanning 2+ hours akin to something from the horus heresy. The thing is it has to convincing, whereas a low budget 40k movie could end up feeling like cosplay on a quite elaborate set. Space marines aren't going to work that well as human bodies in a costume without some changes made. Guardsmen would work, mechanicus could be rigged up in a practical way. I'm not saying it needs 100-200 million dollars but at least 5-10 million at minimum...maybe a little more...otherwise it could be like a non CGI version of that ultramarines movie. One of the bigger hurdles it would have to overcome is the script and dialogue, i've found some of the stuff in 40k novels to be cringe inducing.

We already have a movie about a planet with minor gothic architectural nods, its called Alien 3...the look of the sets and style of that prison is IMO the kind of look i'd want to see.

**ncshooter426**

They made a mutant chronicals movie, they could do a 40k flick. Just needs to not be marines.

**dekinrie**

Movies cost too much and don't give enough time to explain the world a series is the way to go, something that can be related to
My first thought would be a raw guard unit newly deployed as they encounter each new enemy for the first time the viewers can be introduced to them as well.
any marine presence should be very light with no direct interactions have them talked about almost as rumours a friend of a friend met someone who saw one.

**nfe**

Necromunda would be the way forward I think. You get to set it in the 40K universe but you're dealing with relateable humans. You can have baddie totalitarian arbites keeping the underworld gangs down and whatnot. You'd be getting close to a lot of films that have been made before but it'd be doable.

You could also do an inquisitor thing, pitched like a sci-fi film noir, or a film about guardsmen finding themselves hopelessly outmatched by a xenos threat, and they could be good movies, but you're basically just making Blade Runner or Aliens at that point.

**CthuluIsSpy**

Having a Necromunda gangster style film would be cool.
Something like Scarface.

**nareik**

I like the way this thread is heading! Which successful movies would work well reskinned as 40k?

This would give an idea of what 'real' 40k movie could be made.

**Martel732**

40K is a very niche product, without the fan base to support a major motion picture.

**Zodd1888**

Descent of Angels as a movie series would work.

Kids becoming Knights to fight creatures larger than life on a relatable but distinctly alien Death World. These same men learning of the Lion and his Super Human abilities that he himself has issues with in terms of relating or understanding how different he really is. The Dark Angels abruptly landing and changing their world forever.

Rebellions, mystery, and Sci-Fi Medieval mash-up would provide a solid environment for a series, movie, or any content.

Edit: You don't need an existing fan base for a movie. This helps movies be more successful but an original storyline, or unique perspective on an existing storyline, done right works. Examples like Alien, Avatar, Event Horizon, etc. are tremendously original properties that could be repurposed to Grim Dark.

What you need is a script, a director and producer who believes in the property, and GW to work with the studio on what boundaries within the story need to be maintained or added to fulfill the commercial needs of the film.

For example, very little of the Lion in film for GW, tell it from the perspective of the youth growing up and turning into a Marine so the audience can relate through the entire ordeal. To fulfill the required love back-drop use a girl who loses her childhood love to Knighthood (still able to relate, and have emotional connection, passing by in the halls) and the Imperium (total disconnect by male role due to the process, unrelateable by female role due to being a native of the planet and alien nature of the Imperium).

100% possible.

**General Hobbs**

Ultramarines was actually a decent film! I've watched it about a dozen times now. It's enjoyable enough if you're not expecting it to be the next Godfather. Had the ending been more dramatic, with a bigger fight once Proteus recovers and saves venfor, people would probably be more forgiving.

Oh and the plot hole as to why they couldn't just stop the ship from leaving.....

As for the story.......it was the exact. same. story. as Aliens. So don't fault that.

**Aesthete**

Retrogamer0001 wrote:
Gamgee wrote:
LEGO is a huge toy company and one of the largest brands with tons of money and clout. GW is a minnow in an ocean.

Which in turn is a Hasbro company, who also owns Magic The Gathering...enough said. It is a corporate behemoth. So yes, I agree with you.

Lego is not owned by Hasbro. It is a publicly traded company domicile do in Denmark, with the descendants of the founder holding 75% of the shares. I couldn't quickly google current values, but in 2012 it was the most valuable toy company ahead of Mattel. In 2013 it was worth almost 3 times the value of Hasbro at $14.6 billion vs $5.4 billion.

... as for the topics of 40K movies, I think a better bet would be to make a good animated series and build from there.

**Carl**

I have tons of reasons to want a 40k movie, from my obvious passion and decades worth of collecting to just a love for the 40k universe and dystopian future flicks in general. But all of that is absolutely dwarfed by 1 thing.

The massive freak out certain groups would have over even showing a literal fascist, xenophobic, fantastical authoritarian theocracy as the good guys lol. You could make vulkun the star and it would still be a giant collective uproar of objection.

I want to keep this on topic, but all it takes is looking at marvel and it's movies for a glimpse at the thought process in Hollywood. Just watch the new spider man and try and tell me if you think they would support a bunch of space nazis ethnically cleansing Xenos and purging degenerates lol

**richstrach**

Do it like the ultimate satirical anti-war movie - follow some poor scrub as he gets conscripted into the Guard, follow his 'adventures' as he's shipped out to ever more hellish warzones, with the space marines only ever glimpsed as god-like beings in the far distance, and then he dies horribly at the end for some pointless objective or gets shot by his Commissar for cowardice. Job done.

**nfe**

Carl wrote:
I have tons of reasons to want a 40k movie, from my obvious passion and decades worth of collecting to just a love for the 40k universe and dystopian future flicks in general. But all of that is absolutely dwarfed by 1 thing.

The massive freak out certain groups would have over even showing a literal fascist, xenophobic, fantastical authoritarian theocracy as the good guys lol. You could make vulkun the star and it would still be a giant collective uproar of objection.

I want to keep this on topic, but all it takes is looking at marvel and it's movies for a glimpse at the thought process in Hollywood. Just watch the new spider man and try and tell me if you think they would support a bunch of space nazis ethnically cleansing Xenos and purging degenerates lol

Not sure. Starship Troopers exists. The Forever War is getting made. Loads of Vietnam films are pretty blatant about thinking everyone is a villain.

Sure ST is satire (though plenty people still manage to take it at face value somehow), and most Vietnam films (and The Forever War is essentially a Vietnam story) have likeable central characters even if they paint the US as the villain, but you can do that with guardsmen or underhive gangers, too.

**BaconCatBug**

We should pool together and get A1 pictures to make a 40k anime. Kawaii Desu~ Sisters of Battle anyone?

**Twoshoes23**

You all I think are missing a major point here. Chaos themed horror movie would be a great entry into the mainstream movie market. Going straight for the blockbuster is a bit much. I doubt Nurgle would be received well, and Slaneesh might get to raunchy for keeping it rated R. Khorne and Tzeentch though are begging for it. A descent into the madness of chaos, coupled with a tragic story and semi decent acting would be awesome.

**Sgt. Cortez**

Although many ideas in this thread sound pretty nice, I find most of them rather uninspiring.
Nobody needs Starship troopers 4 branded 40K, or Judge Dredd, or Alien, or Event Horizon, or The Walking Dead (Nurgle), or Terminator - I could go on.
I think one would have to think about what makes 40K special, not what similarities 40K has to other franchises. Of course you could easily make a Star Wars or Riddick rip-off set in the 40K universe - but why bother with a bad copy?
We've had threads in this forum debating what's actually original about 40K and often they came to the conclusion that there are only few things unique to 40K. If a movie wants to be a 40K movie and not "just another Sci-Fi movie" it'd have to highlight what's special about that universe. For me that would still be the grimdarkness of the Imperium, or the "Fantasy in spaace"-vibe.
I could also see it as a satire as basically that's what 40K is: Put all Sci-Fi und fantasy tropes together, brand it grimdark and put supermaskuline 80's heroes in.