Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I highly doubt there will be a Warhammer 40k movie. Warhammer 40k has a right wing twang to it that the liberal hollywood directors will want to avoid. In addition, the story isn't all that good either and no one will be able to take it seriously.

What? That makes zero sense.

SouthTexanFrymire wrote:
I highly doubt there will be a Warhammer 40k movie. Warhammer 40k has a right wing twang to it that the liberal hollywood directors will want to avoid. In addition, the story isn't all that good either and no one will be able to take it seriously.

I have no idea where you got that from... 40k isn't left or right wing in any way, saying its right wing because space marines are right wing is like saying a history textbook is a Nazi because it covered Germany from 1929-1945.

Plus, what do you mean the story isn't that good? Which story? 40k is not just one story.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
I wonder if I'm the only one who watched that trailer and didn't see much about it that looked any better than Ultramarines, lol.

Hopefully the voice acting is tons better than those voiceovers.

Ultramarines doesn't have the quality that it has. Mostly it has to do with Texture quality and Shadows.

SouthTexanFrymire wrote:
I highly doubt there will be a Warhammer 40k movie. Warhammer 40k has a right wing twang to it that the liberal hollywood directors will want to avoid. In addition, the story isn't all that good either and no one will be able to take it seriously.

Hollywood doesn't function like that. Some Hollywood directors are politically-motivated. The vast majority are not. Some popular Hollywood directors are even *gasp* right-wing!

I mean, Superman can be considered "right wing" and there's now, what, six Superman movies, a slew of animated television shows and a new Superman movie in development? Saving Private Ryan is one of the most popular films ever committed to celluloid, and yet can be considered a strongly right-wing, jingoist film. Now, imagine shooting Saving Private Ryan with dudes carrying lasguns rather than M4s. Oh, look, it just became a Gaunt's Ghosts film, and made someone a billion dollars. Hollywood would film it in a heartbeat if they thought there was money in it.

That's what motivates Hollywood: Money. Not politics, not art. Money.

The Horus Heresy also would make for a good series, though the "Fall from Grace" storyline is always a hard one to tell.
Take the latest Star Wars movies. You really were not surprised that Anakin went to the dark side because ... well .. he was kind of a dic*. It would have made for a much better story if you were really shocked when he murdered those sandpeople. Instead you were like "Meh -- saw that coming"

That's the risk the HH series would have. They would need to make the Horus betrayal amazing. Something you would never see coming. Something that would shock you so much your soda cup falls to the theater floor.

It would require a 30 minute storyline of Horus and Roboute Guilliman working together and seeming like best friends. During a climatic moment when the two of them face off against a daemon prince, Horus would casually shoot Guilliman in the back of the skull. Something that epic would be required.

Now, imagine shooting Saving Private Ryan with dudes carrying lasguns rather than M4s.

Not to nitpick but they didn't have m4s in ww2 lol

@Grey Templar and walkiflalka

Ignore SouthTexanFrymire; just take a look at his introduction to dakka: www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/503565.page. Just because he's played Space Marine and doesn't think its great he thinks he's an expert in 40k lore.

Redline01 wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
James Cameron's Avatar, 40k Edition...it ends with the Imperium triumphant over Pandora. Space Marines chop down the 'Tree of Souls', the Imperial Guard crush the aliens' ragtag, peasant militia of an army, and finally mop up (read: search and destroy operations against the remaining aliens) with assistance from the Adeptus Mechanicus, who begin drilling holes and sinking mines to get that whatchamacallit mineral.

I think that would be a pretty funny movie to watch

I think Quaritch or whatever his name was would make a fine Commissar.

Basically we want either a HH film/HBO series like game of thrones or a generation kill style IG series. preferably the latter.

About the only way to do this on a reasonable budget that might get approval is if the main characters were an inquisitors warband. You could get away with a budget similar to firefly. Also by using the inquisition you would have a very wide latitude of character types to work with. They are all a bit quirky with such dissimilar backgrounds and agendas that almost any type of story could work.

Maybe a few special episodes where the marines are called in.

The first season would have to focus on just one enemy. Maybe Eldar or Chaos? I wouldn't try nids because bugs are hard to do on a tight budget without looking very cheesy.

 sierra 1247 wrote:
Basically we want either a HH film/HBO series like game of thrones or a generation kill style IG series. preferably the latter.

Yeah, generation kill was great, all you have to do is swap insurgents for chaos cultists or something

walkiflalka wrote:

Now, imagine shooting Saving Private Ryan with dudes carrying lasguns rather than M4s.

Not to nitpick but they didn't have m4s in ww2 lol

Bah, that should have said M1... that's what you get when you use the NumPad for digits when typing.

Any of the stories in the guards omnibus would be doable and would make awesome films that wouldnt be hard for non 40k fans to follow. The Catachan story or 15 hours would be my personal pick

If it was written well, and had leads that could carry it, a film following an Inquisitor and his retinue would probably go over well, a la Jack Ryan from the Red October series. Yeah, this would probably end up being "Eisenhorn: Inquisitor: The Movie", but, what can you do?

 Psienesis wrote:

walkiflalka wrote:

Now, imagine shooting Saving Private Ryan with dudes carrying lasguns rather than M4s.

Not to nitpick but they didn't have m4s in ww2 lol

Bah, that should have said M1... that's what you get when you use the NumPad for digits when typing.

Ok haha that makes more sense. The m4a1 the rifle that one the war! oh wait that seems a bit off

Honestly, I don't think a 40k movie should ever be made.
I mean all the fluff and the history behind the whole 40k universe, or even just 1 race for the matter, would take wayyyyyy to long to explain. So unless its exclusively for a 40k audience its not gonna really work and will be another cheap cash grab.
Alternatively it could be something that borrows from the 40k universe but is its own thing, like the Gaunt's Ghost novels. The fluff is just there for show while most the movie is heavily invested in plot, char dev and others.
So yeah, the only way I think it would work if its a stand alone thing, just me though.

If you look inside the front cover of just about any BL novel, there's a page that I like to call "the scrawl" that wraps up 40K in a few paragraphs, often being slightly retooled for whatever group the novel is about (SM, IG, Inq, etc), and always ends with "... there is only war" (sometimes including bits about thirsting gods). Turn that into a Star Wars-like screen-crawl, or a Ron Pearlman-like opening voice-over and, boom, done.

Ron Pearlman as the narrator would be epic

A big budget 40K movie would be great and would make GW a ton of money. I don't think it will ever be made though because GW would have to give up some of their control on their IP to the movie production company.

Novelist47 wrote:Honestly, I don't think a 40k movie should ever be made.
I mean all the fluff and the history behind the whole 40k universe, or even just 1 race for the matter, would take wayyyyyy to long to explain. So unless its exclusively for a 40k audience its not gonna really work and will be another cheap cash grab.

Alternatively it could be something that borrows from the 40k universe but is its own thing, like the Gaunt's Ghost novels. The fluff is just there for show while most the movie is heavily invested in plot, char dev and others.
So yeah, the only way I think it would work if its a stand alone thing, just me though.

I vote for the latter. 40k is more of a framing world for stories to take place. If 40k was made into a TV show or Movie one of the first storylines tackled would be about the corrupt government. The Imperium has survived for over a hundred centuries, its not going to change by one person. Especially considering the devotion to the Emperor. Heroes in movies and TV shows usually seem to end up going against the "Man" and at one point the audience would have to ask themselves who is this Emperor and why hasn't someone killed him yet?

Nevie wrote:Ron Pearlman as the narrator would be epic

"War. War never changes..."

i think guard with a late save from the SM vs nids movie could be made to work, get Ridley Scott to do it and it fits in with the rest of his stuff haha

If you want a 40k movie just watch Dune, Dredd, Heavy Metal, Aliens or any of the other films whose background material forms the pastiche that is 40k. The Warhammer 40k universe is a backdrop for a game. Priestly and company purposefully made the universe full of homages and inspirations to their favorite fictional universes.

My most sincere advice I can give to anyone who's a fan of 40k from a fluff perspective is to read Dune. It bums me out that so many people are woefully ignorant of what is probably the game's second largest inspiration after Tolkien.

Do people not remember Damnatus? I guess since the project got shut down by GW, most people didn't get to see it.

It was a fan-made 40k film about a group of inquisitorial acolytes. Considering the budget they must've been on, it's pretty damn fantastic. The only thing is it's all in German (subtitles are of course available, though I will say Low Gothic sounds fething fantastic in German) and because it was shut down before the final set of special effects could be added, some of the fight scenes look REALLY bad. But other than that, it's an awesome movie that you should try an find online.

We wrote:
A big budget 40K movie would be great and would make GW a ton of money. I don't think it will ever be made though because GW would have to give up some of their control on their IP to the movie production company.

A big budget 40k movie will never be made because there is nothing even resembling a big budget audience for 40k.

 Hollowman wrote:

We wrote:
A big budget 40K movie would be great and would make GW a ton of money. I don't think it will ever be made though because GW would have to give up some of their control on their IP to the movie production company.

A big budget 40k movie will never be made because there is nothing even resembling a big budget audience for 40k.

A lot of people would watch any big budget sci-fi movie with lots of explosions. Most of them would have no idea about the back story. They don't need to just attract 40K fans, make a good movie and people will watch it.

If Judge Dredd, Chronicles of Riddick, The Watchmen, etc could get made then a 40K movie could be made, Most people who watched those movies had no idea there was a existing fictional universe in other media already in existence.

Put enough action, explosions and boobs in it any fictional universe and it can transition to the big screen.

We wrote:

 Hollowman wrote:

We wrote:
A big budget 40K movie would be great and would make GW a ton of money. I don't think it will ever be made though because GW would have to give up some of their control on their IP to the movie production company.

A big budget 40k movie will never be made because there is nothing even resembling a big budget audience for 40k.

A lot of people would watch any big budget sci-fi movie with lots of explosions. Most of them would have no idea about the back story. They don't need to just attract 40K fans, make a good movie and people will watch it.

If Judge Dredd, Chronicles of Riddick, The Watchmen, etc could get made then a 40K movie could be made, Most people who watched those movies had no idea there was a existing fictional universe in other media already in existence.

Put enough action, explosions and boobs in it any fictional universe and it can transition to the big screen.

A studio can afford to gamble of those films because they have a sure-thing built in - dyed in the wool fans who will come to see it even if reviews are bad, a larger pool of stragglers who will come based on name recognition or the word of fans, etc. It's not that "40K: The Filmening" would draw worse word of mouth, it's that the people attracted to the opening would be too few in number to drive word of mouth for very long.

Each of those films had a MUCH larger inbuilt audience than Warhammer 40K would, with the exception of "Dredd" - which is also bigger than 40K, but somewhat comparable. Of course, Dredd had amazing word of mouth and great reviews, and lost about $10 billion for the studio - because it's inbuilt fan base was too small to support a big budget movie. It never hit critcal mass, and never had much shot of doing so. At best a 40K film might pull a "Serenity" and eventually pay for itself (barely) in the DVD market. Of course, it won't do that because no one is going to gamble on making something whose fan base is massively dwarfed by the Firefly fanbase, and pretty poor competition even for the two movie failure Judge Dredd.

We wrote:

 Hollowman wrote:

We wrote:
A big budget 40K movie would be great and would make GW a ton of money. I don't think it will ever be made though because GW would have to give up some of their control on their IP to the movie production company.

A big budget 40k movie will never be made because there is nothing even resembling a big budget audience for 40k.

A lot of people would watch any big budget sci-fi movie with lots of explosions. Most of them would have no idea about the back story. They don't need to just attract 40K fans, make a good movie and people will watch it.

If Judge Dredd, Chronicles of Riddick, The Watchmen, etc could get made then a 40K movie could be made, Most people who watched those movies had no idea there was a existing fictional universe in other media already in existence.

Put enough action, explosions and boobs in it any fictional universe and it can transition to the big screen.

I agree, we saw with the space marine game and definitely with dawn of war that you don't have to be a 40k fan to enjoy the 40k universe. If you have good action and good music--maybe throw in a little dubstep and (if they're smart) they would cater a bit towards a teenage audience as even though many teenagers think 40k the game is too nerdy or "gay" most teenagers will still find it highly entertaining to watch a space marine beat the sh**t out of some orks. They would have to go more for a loose cannon character like Titus in space marine rather than the usual dour "for the emperor" marine who would be kind of un sympathetic to most audiences.

40k has all the right stuff to be a sci-fi hit.

The only thing I can think of that would ruin 40k to a mass audience would be maybe the scale, aesthetic theme, and story.

eg.
Scale: If it is just another war movie, its hard to keep track of characters and it just becomes Michael Bay. Rather see a small Kill-Team as the focus.

Aesthetics: It would be a change of pace from the gritty brown and grey action movies out now. Bit more color than people are used too. As well as the overall Grim Dark Gothic setting. Space Marines and maybe Inquisition don't curse and speak in proper grammar/accents. Imperial Guard to a lesser extent.

Story: There is a history that would be hard to explain in 2hrs.
Things that the general public might not understand:

Who is the God-Emperor?

When I first got into 40k I didn't know who the Emperor was. I thought he was some dictator, now I know he is "dead" sitting attached to a Golden Throne to act as a beacon to ships that travel with warp drives.

What are Tech Priests?

I didn't understand why we didn't have Scientists in the Future and instead relied on religious nuts to fix our cars.

What are Space Marines?

I thought that Space Marines were normal people in Power Armor.

Who are the Traitor Space Marines? And why are they Traitors?

I still don't understand why all traitor legions are affiliated with Chaos in some way. Even the ones that wanted to avoid Chaos Taint seemed to have been corrupted by it.

What are Psykers? What is the Warp?

I didn't realize how disliked Psykers were until I read Dark Heresy Roleplay material. And it explained how Psyker powers can be really unstable, sometimes killing themselves if your lucky or summoning a Daemon if your unlucky.

The Exposition that would have to go into these simple concepts is astounding. Think how The Last Airbender tried explaining every little detail about Avatar. It would need a good writer or director to be able to make these concept "bite sized" so a general audience could either A. Understand or B. Not Worry About it.

There will never be a real,quality movie:

A.) GW is too controlling/ineptt/generally bafflingly stupid with advertising and handling their IP
B.) It's not popular or well-known enough to attract any competent producers, even if A.) was not applicable. Terrible low-budget CGI direct-to-DVD (if that) vids are the best we'll get.
C.) Movie producers in general don't like to take risks. Movie tie-ins for far more financially successful and popular franchises like Halo have more or less been dead in the water.