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I’m sure you’ll guys can think of more ways Hollywood would feth it up.[img]

It seems to my The only reason anybody cares about such adaptations in the First place is because of obsessive fanboyism and the age-old insecurity issues of animation, comics, Tabletop games, fantasy books and video games- the asinine idea that they're not real art and need a big boy medium like Film to have their visions truly realized.​

If

People like having mainstream success with something they like sometimes. Metalheads after all love when some obscure gak like Celtic Frost (though that's not terribly obscure) gets a name drop.

However, you are correct that any attempt for the most part wouldn't be accepted by most movie studios. To someone that isn't very intrigued by the fluff in the first place, they wouldn't understand the base of the setting and why everyone is a big meanie and nobody stands up to the bad bad Inquisition.

That's also why people get mad at the Space Wolves but that's a different discussion.

We'd have to get someone who has a history of making movies because they genuinely like the medium. I mean, can you imagine if Quentin Tarantino got his hands on the right to a 40k movie? It would be brutal, bloody, unapologetic in its darkness, and true to the medium. That would be a best case scenario of a faithful 40k film.

If we got a director like, for example, M. Night Shamalamalymalon... it would be such utter garbage that he'd probably turn it into a musical. Then again, seeing the Ultramarines dance around in a huge musical number would be downright hilarious.

I mean people want a Hollywood Horus Heresy movie not understanding that it well cost so much money it would cost so money


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 Vitali Advenil wrote:
We'd have to get someone who has a history of making movies because they genuinely like the medium. I mean, can you imagine if Quentin Tarantino got his hands on the right to a 40k movie? It would be brutal, bloody, unapologetic in its darkness, and true to the medium. That would be a best case scenario of a faithful 40k film.

If we got a director like, for example, M. Night Shamalamalymalon... it would be such utter garbage that he'd probably turn it into a musical. Then again, seeing the Ultramarines dance around in a huge musical number would be downright hilarious.

And it would Bomb so hard do you think the mainstream audience would be to a setting where the closest thing that aren’t the Taur to ‘hero’s’ that are basically space Nazi and would have a downer ending do you know how many successful Si-Fi over one hundred millions dollar movies have downer endings. You could probly count them on one hand


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Meow meow meow meow

I think it could be done if all the stars aligned and you got a solid production crew, a director who understood the setting, and proper marketing. The easiest way to get around some of the hardships of the universe is to focus around an Inquisition investigation into chaos. While the IOM is essentially catholic space nazi's , chaos would come off as worse to most people. From there you can rope in Space Marines for the big finale and have a few other faction cameos along the way.

That said, it would have to be animated, a live action adaptation would take way to much money to do correctly and a first time, niche franchise is not likely to get that level of support.

Cool someone else thinks a animated 40k movie could work

Do not want Hollywood, more like the CGI of first Dawn of War. Give use a narative that brings in the marines, chaos riseing because of government inability to push back the orks. Glorious space battle, then drop pod, music from startship troops. fight back the green tide, then seach the sewers of the hive for chaos and end it with blood thirty tansformation and fight. But thats just me.

Maybe a Netflix series like the Castlevaina one

The easiest way to make it work would be to just make an Eisenhorn movie. I don't think a 40k movie could ever happen though. The cost would be far greater than the potential audience could bear. Something like an animated series is about the most you could hope for.

I think you could do something about guardsmen and have it be more of a war movie than sci fi.

Something along the lines of Fifteen Hours (the average life expectancy of a guardsmen) could be really cool IMO.

And it would Bomb so hard do you think the mainstream audience would be to a setting where the closest thing that aren’t the Taur to ‘hero’s’ that are basically space Nazi and would have a downer ending do you know how many successful Si-Fi over one hundred millions dollar movies have downer endings.

Empire Strikes back?

Empire strikes back is a cliffhanger and is followed by a happy ending

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
People like having mainstream success with something they like sometimes.

This is the answer. 40k is a good gaming setting but a terrible IP for a movie, and desire for a movie has more to do with a desire for mainstream approval of their fandom than any realistic expectations for a quality movie.

That’s just what I said!

I'm of the opinion 40k would work best as a netflix mini series. but you'd definatly need the right material, a buncha space marines fighting wouldn't work. IMHO the problem is a lotta people want a war movie, and oddly... that's not the best way to show off the setting

We have Dredd which is basically a 40k movie. It was pretty well received but didn't really make any money. It's very unlikely we'll get a true 40k movie on any big scale because they know it's not likely to be a massive success. If they did it they'd need the scale of the movie to be small too. They couldn't really do some massive scale war between the imperium and chaos. At least not without a lot of setup first. The most likely thing they could do is some sort of movie based around an inquisitor. It'd need to be pretty full on to fit the setting and I don't think it'd do well if they tried to play it off as a serious movie. So IMO the best idea if they were to make a movie is to go with the story of some inquisitor dealing with some Orks maybe throw in him begrudgingly siding with some Eldar out of necessity.

The problem is it's a niche setting and grimdark won't sell a movie. They'd either want to tone it down and turn it into a generic action movie or try and turn it into deadpool in space. Considering how they butchered the warcraft movie and its lore when they had a massive number of players if they did make a 40k movie it wouldn't be for the people who are already fans of the lore.

40K is a caricature of many Hollywood movies and tropes. Wouldn't be that hard to turn it into a movie as well. The difficult part would be to show the unique aspects of the setting.

Imo the best way to make 40k work in a video format, is some form of animation, ideally not full cgi, but something more stylised and 2d.

Secondly, you don't have to get the audience to like the governments of 40k, just one or two people within them.

Imo I would run an initial story told from the perspective of a group of rebels against a planetary governor, who don't really know about the wider galaxy, we get clues that this is the 40k universe, but nothing major, and we see the 'villains' worry about a tithe, that they cant provide as they begin to loose,
there are a few hints at chaos, but nothing concrete (with some form of maguffin).

After a while the rebellion reaches planetary scale and is on the cusp of victory, when it is severely put down by the imperiums military might, we see the subjugation.

During the closing epps of this 'season' we see some guardsmen, being unruly and about to execute some civilians, when a Marine (from either the SW or Salamanders) steps in an strongly disciplines the guardsmen (perhaps easily breaking an arm or 2).

We then later see one of the more militant (but with a heart of gold) rebels, do something epic and heroic, almost succeed, and then fail at the last moment due to the imperiums might, in the process though he is super lucky, and actually manages to kill a marine. As he is about to die, be very upset and curse himself that he wasn't strong enough. But have a chaplain see the whole thing.... cue this guys second season arc of becoming a marine.

We discover that one or more of the rebels was actually an agent of the inquisition, and one of our characters, who is either a psycher or a blank, is deemed useful. This persons second season arc just started, and we get a bunch more colourful characters in the form of an inquisitorial retinue.

The rest of our characters (minus a couple that had to die to get us more emotionally invested, as we are going for an en sable GOT feel), are conscripted to the guard, as the tithe that we were foreshadowed during the opening season.

One of these conscripts is clearly (to the audience) some form of cultist, but the concepts of chaos havn't been fully explained. And another of them has some how smuggled the maguffin aboard their ship, but doesn't really know of its real power is as just a pawn.

Season 2 can involve the corruption of some of the fleet during their transit to another place, the inquisitions attempts to route it out, it can flesh out chaos a little, along side this it can show our SM guy going through indoctrination and all of the other changes, while dealing with the hatred of the other aspirants, as a killer of an astartes.

I dunno where we go from there, ending up at a similar warzone to the characters home world could prove interesting, as they would have to deal with the idea of now being the oppressors, and this could further sow the seeds of chaos.

Hollywood hell no!!!

Bollywood 40k for the win, dem harlequins can DANCE!


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I remember a few years ago someone tried to work out how many players there were, they estimated around 800k to 1.2m, so let’s assume they all go to the cinema in the U.K. at around £20 per person (cinema is expensive here), that’s 200m odd, that doesn’t include all the others that would be dragged in, so a decent budget of 100m for an inquisition movie or such would make its money back possibly, god forbid it’s actually good and it attracts even more people though.

jcd386 wrote:
I think you could do something about guardsmen and have it be more of a war movie than sci fi.

I saw that. They called it Starship Troopers for some reason.

 Vitali Advenil wrote:
We'd have to get someone who has a history of making movies because they genuinely like the medium. I mean, can you imagine if Quentin Tarantino got his hands on the right to a 40k movie? It would be brutal, bloody, unapologetic in its darkness, and true to the medium. That would be a best case scenario of a faithful 40k film.

If we got a director like, for example, M. Night Shamalamalymalon... it would be such utter garbage that he'd probably turn it into a musical. Then again, seeing the Ultramarines dance around in a huge musical number would be downright hilarious.

I am still waiting for "Machete 3: In Space" from Quentin Tarantino. Wh40k would just be Machete in Space.

M. Night would use 3D all wrong and screw up a good story.

Personally I think it would lead itself better to a netflick series than a movie, but regardless, I imagine it will have to feature the imperium v chaos in some shape or form.

To stand under scrutiny of the fans it would need a production of the scale of the LOTR trilogy (imo). And if you ask me, it just ain't gonna happen. The best WH40k movie is the one that dies before the script even gets approved.

Honestly 40K would do fine in Hollywood. In fact it would do great with someone like Micheal Bay - yes yes I just wrote that and said that and ok maybe not him because he'd create an awkward teenage love story between a space marine and his highschool hot pornstar girlfriend...


But look at 40K its ideal for a no thinking action film. Some gothic architecture, big stompy robots, men in armoured suits and big guns that make huge explosions. You can cut the blood for an under 18 or throw in buckets of it in insane quantities.

A lot of people harp on about the grim-dark being too grim-dark but honestly a LOT of that is more in the fans minds than in the games and media GW releases. Heck take Dawn of War the computer game series. The first one is held up as a great gateway into the franchise and yet its really not all that grim-dark save for the world being torn apart by demons. Take that story and throw it onto Hollywood and it would do well.




The big risk with Hollywood is that they'd only focus on the explosions and that they would mess up even the simplest concept of the story. Eg they'd have you save the Emperor and return him to life or some such. Or outright kill a Chaos God.



Honestly the biggest risk would be a repeat of the LotR disaster whereby GW would get swamped with more demand than they can fill and then get a very fast drop off of sales right after the film is past its peak. The big toy companies are used to this and bounce one film to the next and thus can maintain the output to keep up with demand - GW would struggle through the popular period and then either find themselves sitting on a huge backlog of stock that takes years to shift and/or possibly sitting there with another factory that was needed for a year or so and then not needed again.

*Checks watch*

Oh look, it's time for the weekly 40k movie thread again. Where does the time go? At least the OP seems self-aware with how this will go.

 CadianGateTroll wrote:

 Vitali Advenil wrote:
We'd have to get someone who has a history of making movies because they genuinely like the medium. I mean, can you imagine if Quentin Tarantino got his hands on the right to a 40k movie? It would be brutal, bloody, unapologetic in its darkness, and true to the medium. That would be a best case scenario of a faithful 40k film.

If we got a director like, for example, M. Night Shamalamalymalon... it would be such utter garbage that he'd probably turn it into a musical. Then again, seeing the Ultramarines dance around in a huge musical number would be downright hilarious.

I am still waiting for "Machete 3: In Space" from Quentin Tarantino. Wh40k would just be Machete in Space.

M. Night would use 3D all wrong and screw up a good story.

Ummm.....

Robert Rodriguez directs the Machete films.

Honestly, the best way to produce a 40k mainstream adaptation would be a Netflix series based around specific ideas. The Horus Heresy novel series, adapted into a Netflix series, telling all sides of the story at once.

For example, season 1 could cover the events of Horus Rising through Galaxy in Flames.

Season 2 would be Flight of the Eisenstein and Fulgrim and all events that happened around the Istvaan Drop Site Massecre.

Season 3 would cover novels 6-12, all in chronological order and as they happened (even if things jump around, it'll tell it chronologically.

Season 4 would start with a flashback few episodes coveriing the events of First Heretic and then cover other stuff that happen between the end of the last season and the Battle of Prospero, culminating in an extra long episode or episodes covering the events of both Prospero Burns and A Thousand Sons

And so on.




It would put the entire Heresy in chronological order, so you could see the different novels and storylines in relation to each other.


Another idea would be "Arcs," with each season covering an season. One arc might be the Horus Arc, following Horus' fall to darkness. Another might be the Ultramarines, Word Bearer, Dark Angels, and Blood Angels, the lead up to the Battle of Calth and the foundation of Imperium Secundus. Another might be the Prospero Arc, covering events from the Emperor finding Russ and Magnus, Nikaea, Prospero. Another Arc, the traitors, Emperor's Children and their fall, the Iron Warriors and theirs.




If you wanted to do main story 40k they would need to focus around massive, important events, the War of the Beast, Armageddon Wars, Battle of Macragge, the Indomitus Crusade.

I don't care about anyone's "approval". I just want something I can sit back and enjoy for 2 hours as a good story set in the 40K 'verse.

Best I've seen along these lines has been Helbrecht.

CGI of Ian Watson’s space marine would be good, it has everything

Honestly I think the best way would be to do a Caiphius Cain style. While keeping a whole story, run the scenes almost like individual vignettes. You'd have two narrators, one being older Cain, to set the scene, and to add an almost film noir style introspection. The other would be Amberlee, who provides both insight to the greater meta-plot, and to narrate small informative bits to keep the audience on track if they aren't familiar with the universe. A good example of the style (for the added info montage/flashbacks/infodumps see the Speed Racer movie).

"Amberlee" could start the movie with a brief overview of the universe. Not enough to give everything, but to cover the idea of the authoritarian and violent nature of the protagonists.

Next the film proper starts with Cain attending a mission briefing, and obviously not paying attention, but it's for us, not for him.
After that proceed with the movie. Whenever you need a narrator to describe the scene, old Cain does it, as well as providing inner thoughts. Whenever the audience is going to need more explanation Amberlee comes back and a mini-scene keeps us informed, adds to what's happening that Cain wouldn't know, but we should, or just to make fun of Cain's assumptions.

You could run the dichotomy of the brutality of the universe, with the more humorous moments to keep it from being to alienating to the audience. Cain's very real desire to get the H*** off the front lines would be a connection between the movie and the audience.

Run it as a semi-comedic war movie.

If you go the TV show route, you could almost make it an actionesque military procedural, focusing on Cain trying to stay off the front lines.

I really like this. If you’re going down the comedy route, I suddenly had this image of him doing Malcolm in the middle style asides. Maybe with freeze frames too. Though that might be taking it too far...