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Ok, the title is a bit misleading but I'm just thinking how comes Hollywood hasn't taken this project on to the big screen. It has more than enough potential to be as big as DUNE and others like it. The story is big enough to be a trilogy or even bigger.

What do you reckon the storyline should be for the so called films and who should star in it? (Actors and actresses)

Just a thought but it's quite a bit question thinking about it

I always wanted to see the Horus Heresy done as an animated series in the style similar to the late 90's Spawn animated series.

They Have
Its called the cutscenes in Final Liberation (Which are Awesome)

The first real movie needs to ease people into the story line and not come across as cheesy.

First thing, Chaos can not be in the first movie in any capacity except for maybe the smallest anomaly that foreshadows its existence.

Next it needs to happen during the great Crusade, and it needs to be set on earth as it is today.

Something like a mars lander finds remnants of the necrons and eldar fighting like 4738626 years ago, guess what necrons wake up, guess what they hate us and start butchering us.

We fight back, kind of do some damage, then realise how dead we are.

Near the end of the movie Space Marines show up and give us 2 options, serve us or die to the necrons.

We say please help, they come and annihilate them.

Humans and SM fight side by side, follow a particular group of soldiers who end up saving a Captain by sheer fluke and bravery, who then gives them a token. At the end of the movie they are given special permission to take the test to become a marine.

Movie 2, these humans become marines and follow their progression and training and their first real engagement.

Other movies after, introduce Chaos slowly, show its corruption, the main character from the first movie must decide to be a good guy or bad guy, perhaps two best friends choose alternate paths and later must kill each other.

Honestly it wouldn't be hard just follow the atypical progression for any Hollywood action movie but just put a bit of 40k spice on it.

+1: for a pic of the president shaking hands with an imperial diplomat

I thought you said not cheesy, Konrax. :p

The problem with 40k as hollywood fodder is that it doesn't actually have anything that stands out. Either you can do a Space Marine Movie and bore everyone to tears with cardboard characters and "too much focus on CGI at the expense of the characters and story", or you can do a Guard movie and be indistinguishable from every other Nazi Zombies movie, or you can do a Sororitas movie and get slammed by Social Justice and the Church.

I mean... look at Battle:LA. That movie is basically Imperial Guard vs Adeptus Mechanicus. The only thing stopping it being a 40k movie is the lack of aquilas.

I'm pretty sure the reason there hasn't been a 40k movie come out of Hollywood yet is that Hollywood thinks every film needs a love story tacked onto the side and GW ain't letting that happen with a marine lead.

 jonolikespie wrote:
I'm pretty sure the reason there hasn't been a 40k movie come out of Hollywood yet is that Hollywood thinks every film needs a love story tacked onto the side and GW ain't letting that happen with a marine lead.

Well, they could pick up another license too...
[MOD EDIT - YOU are responsible for the language in any pictures you post - Alpharius]

There's no 40k movie because there's no reason to be one. The IP isn't big enough to sell tickets the way that a new Star Wars movie can, simply by having the brand name attached, and most of the IP is borrowed from other sources. So why pay GW money and take on all of the baggage of 40k when you can make your own "grimdark space war" movie that borrows from the same things as 40k?

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I thought you said not cheesy, Konrax. :p

The problem with 40k as hollywood fodder is that it doesn't actually have anything that stands out. Either you can do a Space Marine Movie and bore everyone to tears with cardboard characters and "too much focus on CGI at the expense of the characters and story", or you can do a Guard movie and be indistinguishable from every other Nazi Zombies movie, or you can do a Sororitas movie and get slammed by Social Justice and the Church.

I mean... look at Battle:LA. That movie is basically Imperial Guard vs Adeptus Mechanicus. The only thing stopping it being a 40k movie is the lack of aquilas.

++The Adeptus Mechanicus does not endorse those filthy xenos. Carry on citizen.++

 Verviedi wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I thought you said not cheesy, Konrax. :p

The problem with 40k as hollywood fodder is that it doesn't actually have anything that stands out. Either you can do a Space Marine Movie and bore everyone to tears with cardboard characters and "too much focus on CGI at the expense of the characters and story", or you can do a Guard movie and be indistinguishable from every other Nazi Zombies movie, or you can do a Sororitas movie and get slammed by Social Justice and the Church.

I mean... look at Battle:LA. That movie is basically Imperial Guard vs Adeptus Mechanicus. The only thing stopping it being a 40k movie is the lack of aquilas.

++The Adeptus Mechanicus does not endorse those filthy xenos. Carry on citizen.++

I think he meant District 9

There was a 40k movie. Ultramarines or something of that sort. Pretty decent if I recall. About 3 years old now?

 DarthSpader wrote:
There was a 40k movie. Ultramarines or something of that sort. Pretty decent if I recall. About 3 years old now?

Yeah, Ultramarines. Bad low-budget CGI, and IIRC the story wasn't very impressive either.

I think good 40k movies could be made, but indeed I wonder if they're the kind of movies people would enjoy.

Space Marines wouldn't work as main characters imo. They're too OP in the lore, too inhuman, and definitely too Cheesy. For this same reason, I think Chaos, Tyranids, and Necrons would be a bit much for an entry film.

Use the same method Marvel has used to great success. Don't make a 40k Film. Make a genre film in the 40k universe. Inquisitors or Imperial Guardsmen would make good first entries for such a franchise. Go classic. Imperial Guards fighting a brutal war of attrition against a Green Tide, or a lone down on his luck Inquisitor going rogue to expose some heretical conspiracy. Additional groups like the SoB, AdMech, and Eldar could easily be squeezed into such film as supporting characters, and the Space Marines could even make an appearance towards the end as the Cavalry (kick ass scene of drop pods slamming into the ground from the sky and assault marines jumping into the fray mid battle ).

I would buy out a theater room for a Horus heresy trilogy.

I think it would function much better in an animated sense. You could really draw it out over the long term and flesh out the characters. I'd love to see the Heresy in that format...but I have to say though...seeing a Tyranid invasion on the big screen even if it is all CGI would be a real treat, as would seeing a planetary assault by Marine drop pods...getting goosebumps just picturing it.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I thought you said not cheesy, Konrax. :p

The problem with 40k as hollywood fodder is that it doesn't actually have anything that stands out. Either you can do a Space Marine Movie and bore everyone to tears with cardboard characters and "too much focus on CGI at the expense of the characters and story", or you can do a Guard movie and be indistinguishable from every other Nazi Zombies movie, or you can do a Sororitas movie and get slammed by Social Justice and the Church.

I mean... look at Battle:LA. That movie is basically Imperial Guard vs Adeptus Mechanicus. The only thing stopping it being a 40k movie is the lack of aquilas.

I disagree wholeheartedly.
Look at Space Marine and Titus' interactions with the humans. They literally see him as a demi god, and yet he's humble, and almost every interaction they have is interesting as feth. Because 40k Space Marine's aren't master chiefs. They're walking, talking (this is important) demi gods.
A guard movie would be very different from that. Know why? We outnumber the enemy, not the other way around, but its still hopeless. That and all the cool monsters that are actually different than what we've been seeing, and we'd be looking (if the film ended happily) at a pyrrhic victory.
A chaos movie where we follow around fething Guts as he probably kills another Khorne lord would be
What 40k has to offer is EXTREMES in every sense of that word.

I tend to think that GW would be loathe to allow Hollywood to have a big say in their IP. They are jealous of what is done with it. Also I bet they would charge top dollar for the licensing.

I think rather than a big budget film with a huge potential to fail (40K has a certain reputation among non devotees and I think there would be a big resistance to it and a desire to see it fail) it would be better to have a well made tv series. HH would make a good tv series but a poor movie for me.

I think ( thinking quite deeply in to this possibility) that the story should have no reason to be only aimed at the 40k max heads as it has potential story wise to actually be a great start to a chain of SM films. I would like to think of it broken in to about 3-4 parts explaining the story and introducing new threats as the story moves forward.

I think as an action film it would be wise for the first film to capture the audience by dumping us in the middle of the Horus heracy. I mean like start visually exploding our eyes with what that would look through the eyes of the SM as it was really happening. Obviously the audience would react more to the action factor rather than questioning WTF is actually going on factor but this would be the chance for the film to set the hell the humans are in with that opening. Following that up now the audience has given their full attention would be flash backs of how the emperor United humanity and began the first space crusade.

I think there is more than enough room to throw romance in there for the sake of Hollywood having that requirement. SM are still humans and therefor have feelings to actually show affection of some sort. Anyways non important to me but may be important to give star characters more depth in to their roles through the films direction.

I think it's important not to use anyone famous in the film. Fresh faces all round for a film like this, I don't want to see in diesel as a SM as I think that alone would kill it completely.

Anyways, the first film would be introducing humans and their glory in the distant future but also reveals their struggles between themselves which follows the final introduction to chaos. Flash backs of the past during the middle of the film and will end with the reveal of the chaos gods.......leaves a nice taster for second film.....

Second film would throw some neurons or orcs in the mix. I would like to see some more flashbacks in the film to explain more to the audience our history and how this future came to be. Maybe the 1st and second films would project the entire Horus herecy to its finish.

3rd film would introduce eldar and dark eldar, some nice confrontations there. Maybe throw in some SM chapter history depending which chapter they choose to be the flagship star of the show.

4th film would introduce more stuff like warp things, primarch paths, more data to help viewers link the dots....maybe the movies could find a way to keep going but that's my twist on the whole thing

Nice to read some of your thoughts :-)

Most action movies are pretty dumb (and I mean that in the best possible way) so having a plot that isn't particularly complicated is fine. It would probably work best as something like a cop movie, featuring an Inquisitor and his/her warband investigating stuff, doing detective things, and getting into shoot outs with all kinds of people.

Skip the whole Ordos thing, let our Movie Inq investigate whatever it is that serves the plot. Could be heretics, could be aliens, could be daemons. Doesn't matter. This also has the options for the love-interest angle that Hollywood loves and, given that the Inq and Warband will be moving throughout the strata of society, you can have the obligatory strip club scene that is in every cop movie filmed from 1972-2014.

If it was something similar in style and image to Bladerunner, slowly parceling out the details of the Imperium and the 40K IP in general, it could work. All you really need to start with is a Hive City, a cop coming out of retirement, and some dangerous skin-jobs.

Add a love story into the plot of the movie I suggested about boy meets girl, boy fights to save planet, boy becomes space marine, boy finds girl killed by traitors Crusade, boy going nuts killing traitors.

Bam Horus heresy from a point of view not yet shown!

Start printing money today!

Edit: #spartacus40000

Horus Heresy is too big for movies. It should be either live-action or CGI series. And it shouldn't be the first thing at all.

The first thing could be something like this:
Hive world, protagonist running for his life from hive gangs. He meets Arbites, has tense interaction with them, runs as the hive gangs catch up with them. Meets nice girl; they start seeing each other - when he complains about the lack of jobs, she invites him for a weekly 'cult' she likes. There, he meets a ragtag band of people preaching against the oppression of the Imperium, etc. The girl is vividly intoxicated by such words, while the protagonist doesn't feel any good about that.
Arbites storm the place (probably after interrogating a hive ganger), imprisons protagonist, the girl and some other people. He goes under interrogation for some time (vivid violence), but finally the Arbites consider him not TOO guilty. A few months later, he's sent to a penal legion of the IG in a far away planet, fighting against Chaos cultists in another planet.

There, he knows camaraderie, nice fellas, funny Ratlings (always stealing something, but their cooking saves thei asses), a loveable Ogryn, a brutish sergeant, a overzealous and talkative Cleric and a sinister Commissar which never speaks, but everytime he shows up the platoon goes silent. The protagonist doesn't understand much of that, of course - his comrades give only brief explanations.
The next morning, strange lights show up in the sky; the scouts warn of an impending attack. Humans and creatures looking like humans - a friend of the protagonist spits as (s)he says the word "Mutants" - advance in disorganized lines towards the penal legion. Firefights and a brittle melee starts, with the protagonist overrun by the fighting after shooting twice or thrice.

In the confusion, his gaze meets the one from the girl he met back then in the Hive, but she's different... she's covered in tattoos and grisly ornaments. For a second she stops grinnig and stares at him. She recognizes him, crackles maniacally and charges at him, with a ragged blood-spilling sword. He parires her attack with his lasgun, gun-butts her in the belly and ask "Why are you doing this?"
"It's the will of the dark gods, you idiot!" is her answer. She still tries to hit him, cutting deep into his right shoulder. Shouting in pain, he has no other option but to shoot at her heart. Spitting blood, she smiles at him: "Yes... the dark ones are watching over you. I'm just a sacrifice for them, but you will be SO much more!".
She collapses and dies at his arms, while a trail of tears leaves his eyes. Barely containing his rage, the protagonists kills so many cultists that the moral of his troop is lifted enough to riot the cultists. The few left alive are mercilessly executed - except one more well-dressed, which suffers the same fate after being interrogated.

The protagonist receives some laurels and is even promoted to sergeant (the previous one died horrendously). His comrades rejoin him and take him for a well-deserved rest and festivities. Unbeknownst to them, a cultist scout reports back to his vile master, which is very interested in the newfound champion of the loyalist dogs. Said master is well-versed
in the arts of guile and deception: [xxx], the Silver-Tongue. This person has been one of the worst criminals of a now extinct Hive city, lost to the predations of the Orks (obligatory flashback). He prayed to the Emperor to take away the foul xenos, but he didn't answer - the Hive was considered an expendable asset by the IG High Command to trap the Orks.
But something else answered.

Silver-Tongue manages to put the penal legion under distress again, but this time he sends renegade conscripts and even mutated Ogryns. The penal legion is ill-equipped to deal with such power and is overwhelmed. In the aftermath, the protagonist is taken from the pile of his comrades (who sacrificed themselves to protect him) by one strong mutant to the feet of Silver-tongued. Initially hostile, the protagonist slowly starts to see the wisdom of that strange, but classy individual. While talking to the newcomer, Silver-tongued subtlely moves his fingers around a strange scepter (has a bizarre big 'comma' on it) - each movement enthralls the protagonist more and more to his speech. By the end, he's totally taken away by the conversation and agrees to do everything Silver-tongued says. Next week, another penal legion arrives at the planet, but the protagonist faces them from the other side... with the same equipment the girl from his past had when they met again.

When both forces clash, only the laugh of dark gods are heard while the screen goes up to the colorful, flickering sky...
[Credits]

Furyou Miko wrote:I thought you said not
I mean... look at Battle:LA. That movie is basically Imperial Guard vs Adeptus Mechanicus. The only thing stopping it being a 40k movie is the lack of aquilas.

I liked that movie. The soldiers even used Markerlights!

ThePrimordial wrote:What 40k has to offer is EXTREMES in every sense of that word.

This pleases Slaanesh

 LordofHats wrote:
.....Additional groups like the SoB, AdMech, and Eldar could easily be squeezed into such film as supporting characters, and the Space Marines could even make an appearance towards the end as the Cavalry (kick ass scene of drop pods slamming into the ground from the sky and assault marines jumping into the fray mid battle ).

This is how I imagine a 40k film would end

A film could deal with the plight of humans facing alien foes or an insidious daemonic plot.

Have a sad yet rousing scene near the end with the guy or gal who never lost faith in the imperial creed, who had secretly believed in the tales told to her of the Emperors angels (which had been dismissed as myths and fairy stories by others).

"Like clay I shall mould them and in the furnace of war
I shall forge them."

Falling to the big bad, in its hour of triumph, the hero or heroine is about to die. Big bad gloats. comes in close. There are tears.

"They will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight them."

Sonic Booms.

Big bad sees this as a sign of victory.

"They are my bulwark against the Terror."

Our hero fading, hope almost gone. streaks of fire reflected in his/her eyes.

"They are the Defenders of Humanity."

Drop Pods streak to the ground. explosive bolts fire and drop doors. Gigantic meta humans are glimpsed through the smoke and fire and fog.

Big bad is now confused and feels dread.

"They are my Space Marines"

A defiant smile, whispering. Big bad coming in closer...'...and they shall know no fear."

or some such reworked nonsense.



No studio will touch GW with a barge pole since they will not be able to get rights to merchandise etc.

Horus Heresy, at least for a mainstream film release, would be too big and too divergent as a starting point. You don't start with the Heresy anymore than Marvel started with The Avengers. Gotta build up to it first.

There's really a lot of somewhat convoluted 40k lore that doesn't need to be put center stage. A lot of it can be hinted at, easter egged, and toyed with for the enjoyment of fans without putting it front and center to bog down the rest of the audience.

I do like the idea of a Direct to Video or OVA style franchise, similar to DC's run of animated films. It would be cheaper, and allow such films to indulge fans more directly without the need to draw in a larger audience.

It's a mistake to try and translate the 40k world details in to a film, too much info and would create a stupidness from the vast info and story backgrounds which are true to the 40k universe.

It would be much more effective to select a single person from a single chapter and tell his story while the huge events like the herecy are taking place. There is no need for building up to the HH because it would be just insane to attempt to project a film from the million lines of text odescribing how, when and why. There needs to be segments chosen to play and huge chunks chucked out for the sake of not confusing the direction and the audience.

Remember a film this big will not be created just for us so it won't be interested in fine details just like for example Hollywood does with the Greek mythology films.....most of it is rubbish and not based on the real story background. But Hollywood rewrite history because it would be better with a hot chick, and actually making the enemy come close to winning and really echo the hero underline. Most people who haven't a clue of the story to begin with don't complain and just love the action or sexy scenes. It's the minority who know the ins and outs who moan....in this case us.

I'm a blood Angels fan so for obvious reasons I would love to see the rise and fall of sanguinious but at the time slowly explain the detailed universe with a dumb projection to cater all viewers. It's a huge universe and should be cut with a knife to the center and not travel in circles going through every topic. A thin line for a star character (or two) with the horizon revealing important key points so viewers get an idea of what the 40k world is all about....too much info and the film becomes a fruit salad.

I would just love to see any big budget effort for any w40k direction decided.....just imagining those war scenes with today's CGI capability is just mouth watering .....

Okay, here's 2 of the possible plans if they were make a movie:
-Completely CGI, in the style of the ultramarine game. Requires Matthew Mercer as a space marine or an imperial guard.
-(less preferred option) Live-Action, probably loads of CGI, with actors like Tom Hardy, and again, Matthew Mercer. That guy needs to be in it.

That is why a 40K movie MUST be animated.

Verviedi wrote:
++The Adeptus Mechanicus does not endorse those filthy xenos. Carry on citizen.++

How do you know they're xenos though? They could easily be gene-augmented Skitarii. They look more human than a Kataphron.

Tactical_Spam wrote:

I think he meant District 9

No, I meant Battle: LA. And it's she.

ThePrimordial wrote:
I disagree wholeheartedly.
Look at Space Marine and Titus' interactions with the humans. They literally see him as a demi god, and yet he's humble, and almost every interaction they have is interesting as feth. Because 40k Space Marine's aren't master chiefs. They're walking, talking (this is important) demi gods.
A guard movie would be very different from that. Know why? We outnumber the enemy, not the other way around, but its still hopeless. That and all the cool monsters that are actually different than what we've been seeing, and we'd be looking (if the film ended happily) at a pyrrhic victory.
A chaos movie where we follow around fething Guts as he probably kills another Khorne lord would be
What 40k has to offer is EXTREMES in every sense of that word.

Guard don't actually outnumber most of their enemies - Tyranids (outnumbered), Orks (outnumbered), Daemons (outnumbered) Traitor Guard (parity), Dark Eldar (parity), Necrons (parity, fluffwise) Tau (outnumber), CSM (outnumber), Eldar (outnumber).

Space Marines might talk, but they have the emotional maturity and depth of a twelve year old and tend to be very one-dimensional.

Vector Strike wrote:

Furyou Miko wrote:I thought you said not
I mean... look at Battle:LA. That movie is basically Imperial Guard vs Adeptus Mechanicus. The only thing stopping it being a 40k movie is the lack of aquilas.

I liked that movie. The soldiers even used Markerlights!

I liked that movie. :p Not least of which because Michelle Rodriguez actually survived to the end credits for a change.

A massive budget is required to portray the setting well. You could do a little story about a squad of Guardsmen running from Chaos Marines or whatever, but it's a massive and epic setting, and you'd need Star Wars/Lord of the Rings money to do it justice.

GW's been approached before about it but they always say no when they can't get full creative control.

++You dare believe that the holy Defenders of Mars would fight Terran soldiers on Terran soil?! The Adeptus Mechanicus has done nothing wrong!++

I want to see a pretentious emo angst ridden warhammer anime. kid goes to a local scholam and the kids pick on him and due to quirk in events ends up being tested positive for some weird factor that makes him special and ends up joining (insert here something special). along the way there will be a lot of training montages.