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do you think it will ever be on that level in terms of general popularity?

Nope. Just too niche in its universe.

The Marvel or DC universe are popular because they are crossovers from many different niches.

I like Batman for instance, but couldn't give a crap to Green Lantern.

The GW universe could be as popular as a whole if they had a bajillion different universes that they would cross over for promotion and I just don't see them doing that :p

I don't, but 40k could be far more well known.

Not a chance. We can count the current 40k things on one hand. DC or Marvel has comics, novels, conventions, animated movies, TV shows, live action franchises, kid's cartoons, miniatures games, RPGs, video games, toys and don't forget LEGOs. Until we see a 40k LEGO set, there is just no chance in hell.

No. Not even Judge Dredd has done that well among American audiences, and two movies have been made based on it so far.

hardly, 40k's pretty niche, it's a table top war game, it's level of sucess and knowledge is amazing when you consider what it is. (almost universally known among nerds) but I doubt it could go mainstream, not without losing it's soul

Nope, never. My favorite are the people who insist that GW stole from Blizzard though (WC, WoW and SC) without knowing how old our TT game is.

Not a chance in hell. Wolverine alone is more popular than Warhammer 40k. Forget about Spider-Man, Batman and Superman; Wolverine alone has more popularity than 40k. One hairy, ugly, smelly Canadian with spiky bits trumps Horus and his Kronies.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Not a chance in hell. Wolverine alone is more popular than Warhammer 40k. Forget about Spider-Man, Batman and Superman; Wolverine alone has more popularity than 40k. One hairy, ugly, smelly Canadian with spiky bits trumps Horus and his Kronies.

... not that there's anything wrong with Canadians... IS THERE!?

BrianDavion wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Not a chance in hell. Wolverine alone is more popular than Warhammer 40k. Forget about Spider-Man, Batman and Superman; Wolverine alone has more popularity than 40k. One hairy, ugly, smelly Canadian with spiky bits trumps Horus and his Kronies.

... not that there's anything wrong with Canadians... IS THERE!?

Nope. You guys make for a good hat!

LightKing wrote:
do you think it will ever be on that level in terms of general popularity?

Not in the hands of Games workshop, PLC. Mind you, I'm quite okay with my little army men remaining in relative obscurity.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Wolverine alone is more popular than Warhammer 40k. Forget about Spider-Man, Batman and Superman; Wolverine alone has more popularity than 40k. One hairy, ugly, smelly Canadian with spiky bits trumps Horus and his Kronies.

... and child molester. Don't forget that wolverine has a thing for under-18 girls.

All Gdub would have to do is make a cgi movie (or 3) that tells the Horus Heresy to increase recognition.

This summer, World of Warcraft is making a movie and I hope Gdub is watching the results $$$. When I saw the WoW trailer HH was the first thing I thought of. 40k has so much rich background stuff their story is already written.

I'd pay to see a 40k movie.

God i hope not, i dont want people trying to change canon for change sake.

Getting tumblr interested in 40k is like praying to tzeench to just ruin the canon.

No

GW missed their opportunity to go mainstream and simultaneously sealed Warhammer Fantasy's when they refused to make a deal with Blizzard all those years ago. Now you have Warcraft and Starcraft rip-offs of the GW universe that are globally known and recognized and GW is struggling to keep it's head above water with 40K while decapitating a once great franchise and replacing it with whatever the feth AOS is supposed to be.

As others have said, no and would you really want it to?

No. The problem is that 40k's story is mediocre at best, and very often just plain awful. As a background for creating your own "{historical thing} IN SPACE" armies and fighting epic battles between them it's adequate, but it doesn't really have much to offer outside of that role. And even attempting to change this would likely mean hurting 40k as a gaming setting. You can't make compelling characters and a setting focused around them without taking away the freedom to do your own thing that makes a good gaming setting.

And then there's the practical question of who is going to do it. GW doesn't have the money to attempt to go big, and nobody is going to pay to license an IP with limited brand recognition and no unique elements. They can just rip off the same things GW ripped off and make their own "grimdark scifi" movie/toys/etc.

40K has no chance. People read comics for different reasons. Some like the darker stories, some like the comedies, some like a mix of the two. 40K is 100% grim dark all the time, and when it does go over the top into comedy zone the current fans complain. It really is a no win situation. Also you have to factor in the cheesecake factor. Not saying its a positive or negative thing, but it is a thing. So unless you want your Space Marines in boob plate, it just never will have the book cover appeal of most comic titles.

And to be honest, the writing would have to get much, much better and strangely enough much much simpler.

And to be honest, the writing would have to get much, much better and strangely enough much much simpler.

Pretty sure Dan Abnett knows a thing about writing for film...

 Psienesis wrote:

And to be honest, the writing would have to get much, much better and strangely enough much much simpler.

Pretty sure Dan Abnett knows a thing about writing for film...

Not according to IMDB. He only has one film credit and thats the Warhammer 40K movie and we all know how well that did. Everything else is comic book or video game credits and the one film he was involved with that did go big (Guardians of the Galaxy) he was involved in the comic side of the film and just colaborated with the main writers Dunn (the director) and Perlman (Guardians, Thor, and a marvel documentary).

Again, this is just going off IMDB if he has other movie credits that I don't know about, then well... yeah that.

40K has been around for over 25 years. If it was capable of being as popular as Marvel it already would be.

Much though I dislike super heroes, the Marvel books have a much better background for creating interesting stories. All you have in 40K is grimdark war frozen in the year 40,001 with a history of 20,000 years of grimdark war behind it.

There used to be humour, and even some hope, but GW got rid of that over the years.

Unfortunately in order for 40K to go mainstream and popular the GW Creative Development wing would need to exist for one thing. New story would have to come out to keep people interested. The other thing about Marvel and DC is that they have a definitive good guy and bad guy with the good guy always prevailing in the end. In 40K there is no good guy. The races in 40K are like politicians. They are ALL evil, some are jest less evil than others. There is no humor outside of Orks and that has been slowly dying away, the history isn't fleshed out enough in the universe, and with Blizzard being so on top of everything anything that comes out now will be considered a rip off of their stuff even if the original concept was GW's. When Mists of Pandarea came out for World of Warcraft a lot of people said Blizzard ripped the idea off of Kung Foo Panda, but in reality Pandarens had been around since Warcraft 3. At this point it's a losing battle for GW to try and get out there. They lost their chance when they turned Blizzard away so many years ago and now they are paying for it.

 Jayden63 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

And to be honest, the writing would have to get much, much better and strangely enough much much simpler.

Pretty sure Dan Abnett knows a thing about writing for film...

Not according to IMDB. He only has one film credit and thats the Warhammer 40K movie and we all know how well that did. Everything else is comic book or video game credits and the one film he was involved with that did go big (Guardians of the Galaxy) he was involved in the comic side of the film and just colaborated with the main writers Dunn (the director) and Perlman (Guardians, Thor, and a marvel documentary).

Again, this is just going off IMDB if he has other movie credits that I don't know about, then well... yeah that.

keep in mind guardians of the galaxy was based on a Comic he wrote. the Modern guardians of the galaxy? his creation

 Xerics wrote:
Unfortunately in order for 40K to go mainstream and popular the GW Creative Development wing would need to exist for one thing. New story would have to come out to keep people interested. The other thing about Marvel and DC is that they have a definitive good guy and bad guy with the good guy always prevailing in the end. In 40K there is no good guy. The races in 40K are like politicians. They are ALL evil, some are jest less evil than others. There is no humor outside of Orks and that has been slowly dying away, the history isn't fleshed out enough in the universe, and with Blizzard being so on top of everything anything that comes out now will be considered a rip off of their stuff even if the original concept was GW's. When Mists of Pandarea came out for World of Warcraft a lot of people said Blizzard ripped the idea off of Kung Foo Panda, but in reality Pandarens had been around since Warcraft 3. At this point it's a losing battle for GW to try and get out there. They lost their chance when they turned Blizzard away so many years ago and now they are paying for it.

Just had to quote and reply, as a Blizzard fan boy and avid WoW player... YAY , someone else knows Pandarens were in WCIII! You are one of my heroes!

I hope not !

Space Marine , same ' ole cardboard superhero, schtick is bad enough.

Downplay or subvert the theocracy in space on every convenient occasion and substitute Walmart in space , is bad enough.

Popularity always substitutes vulgarity and conformity for depth and individuality . I have never seen it do otherwise.

I hope it doesn't because Marvel and DC have been PC'd to the max with gender and color swapped heroes.

short answer: Nope.

Long Answer: Nnnnooooooooooooooooooope

Grimdark is not a genre or theme most people will get.
Not many of the races in 40k have that many redeeming features, and how much backlash would there be when the plush space marines start buddying-up to the anime Eldar for the "Lets gang up on Chaos" of the week?

 Skinnereal wrote:
Grimdark is not a genre or theme most people will get.
Not many of the races in 40k have that many redeeming features, and how much backlash would there be when the plush space marines start buddying-up to the anime Eldar for the "Lets gang up on Chaos" of the week?

Because Grimdark is stupid.