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.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I guess there’s also the question of what makes a given Rating. I’ve read opinions of unknown accuracy that you can still get a family friendly rating if you have some swears and messy deaths, provided it’s mostly implied.

Robocop levels of splatterpunk or GTFO.

The Fallout series looks pretty promising, so yeah... fingers crossed.

I really hope that whatever they do, it doesn't water down some of the horrific grimdark nature of the setting to cater to mainstream audiences. So, so many things these days seem to be made with little to no care or understanding towards the source material.

Not expecting much from it considering how some of Amazon's recent shows have been though, unfortunately.

Eh, there are degrees.

There’s enough to the setting and background where the horror needn’t be especially visceral. Not at first, anyways.

It's going to be a coin toss - will Warhammer become the next "Marvel Universe" and finally break through to the masses, or will it end up being an abomination no one cares about and the fans of the setting will try to purge from their minds?

Whatever it will become, it'll have Primaris instead of Firstborn in it, so my interest is already low. My vision of 40K is too cynical and too rooted in UK scifi traditions to ever be considered something for the masses.

The statement on GW's investor relations site is much more non-committal: https://investor.games-workshop.com/news-posts/agreementtodevelopfilmsandtelevisionseries181223

It sounds like the deal is to continue development; a long way from anything ever getting made.

SamusDrake wrote:
Necromunda or one of the Warhammer Quests stories would probably be a good starting point.

Blackstone Fortress has that "Moria in space" feel to it, and even has it's own "Balrog" in the form of the Ambull. Necromunda immediately brings Doctor Who's Paradise Towers and Happiness Patrol to mind, and is a place for many interesting stories; maybe a travelling troupe of Harlequins are performing for a noble but they're really in town for their own agenda.

This way they wouldn't have to start off in the large-scale wars and keep things manageable until the greater cinema audience becomes more familiar with the Warhammer thing.

I like your thinking. Eisenhorn is just about ideal, IMO. Gamers' heads will immediately go to mass battles and such, but what will actually get viewers are compelling characters that they can get invested in. Not a cast of thousands and CGI warfare on some impossible scale.

Regarding Rings of Power, I thought its biggest failing was just that it was slow and a little dull. A lot of the other 'huge problems' didn't bother me. Tolkien fans are some of the very worst 'ackschully' folks out there.

 Geifer wrote:


Budgetary considerations aside, I don't know if that's desirable to GW. I'll draw a comparison to Black Library. Initially we got Imperium-centric bolter porn as the main fare. It took many years before Xenos perspectives were added, and similarly for crime and horror to emerge as book categories.

If I were a betting man I'd say GW wants to lead with a big spectacle featuring their most recognizable property to wow people and satisfying their core fans before they branch out into more specific or niche things.

I provided two Imperium centric settings as examples; BSF is mostly about Imperial Agents doing battle with Traitor Marines and Guard. Necromunda is set on an important Imperial Hive world. Here you can tap into LOTR, 2000AD(Judge Dredd) and even Mad Max. In the case of BSF you have a Deathstar like vessel that also taps into Starwars. In both examples Xenos are at best supporting characters, but for the most part just characters that the Imperial agents or citizens will bump into so they weren't my point.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gorgon wrote:


I like your thinking. Eisenhorn is just about ideal, IMO. Gamers' heads will immediately go to mass battles and such, but what will actually get viewers are compelling characters that they can get invested in. Not a cast of thousands and CGI warfare on some impossible scale.

Regarding Rings of Power, I thought its biggest failing was just that it was slow and a little dull. A lot of the other 'huge problems' didn't bother me. Tolkien fans are some of the very worst 'ackschully' folks out there.

Exactly that. There's also the matter of successfully introducing the satire of 40K, which is easily lost on many unless spelled out to them - which GW themselves had to do not long ago. Even Dune - the most popular sci-fi novel of all time - was lost on modern audiences when Denis had to defend it by stating that it wasn't a white-saviour fantasy. The marine brotherhood and sister...sisterhood themes also might be under fire from the pride audience for not being inclusive enough. A smaller and gradual introduction might make that easier...

But if there's a Titan with a full carapace, firm leg motors and a warm plasma engine....may no man try and stop me! I'll be there on opening night!

Impressive they have Cavill on as executive producer. If Netflix had just let him also be showrunner on The Witcher, in addition yo starring in it, it would have been ten times the show. The reason so many of these adaptations go bad is because they have bad people at the top, and nobody holding the reins on the IP approval side of things.

That's why we got a terribly embarrassing LotR show and no Conan show. One said, yeah do whatever, and the other side, you won't do anything to diminish our property. Hopefully the walls tightening in on Hollywood means they'll be more willing to things somebody wants to watch and being willing to satisfy the IP holder with their work. Rings of Power was quite the black eye after all.

My main concern is whatever the end up shying away (whether intentionally or unintentionally) from portraying the Imperium in a way that makes them very obviously a group you aren't meant to side with, as there seems to be a large portion of fans these days who seem to think you're meant to root for the Imperium and who make out that they're the the best thing for humanity in the setting.

SamusDrake wrote:

 Geifer wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gorgon wrote:


Exactly that. There's also the matter of successfully introducing the satire of 40K, which is easily lost on many unless spelled out to them - which GW themselves had to do not long ago.

Extremely easily lost, when even after that statement so, so many claim that 40k hasn't been satire since Rogue Trader. Usually while at the same time as acknowledging how absurd, nonsensical, mocking and exaggerated many aspects of 40k are....but apparently that's not satire!

 Mentlegen324 wrote:


Extremely easily lost, when even after that statement so, so many claim that 40k hasn't been satire since Rogue Trader. Usually at the same time as acknowledging how absurd, nonsensical, mocking and exaggerated many aspects of 40k are....but apparently that's not satire!

Actually, come to think of it they might as well not bother.

Quickly, has anyone got Henry's number? We need to warn him before it's too late!

Greenfield wrote:
The statement on GW's investor relations site is much more non-committal: https://investor.games-workshop.com/news-posts/agreementtodevelopfilmsandtelevisionseries181223

It sounds like the deal is to continue development; a long way from anything ever getting.

Ha! I'm not surprised. I continue to be baffled that war-com marketing has been hyping this as much as they have. It's very... provincial, I think? GW comes off as quite naive here, as these are clearly still very early days for the project. They understand "show, not tell" when it comes to marketing models but not really when it comes to anything else.

The next announcement will be that it is based on Rogue Trader era and that Cavill will be playing Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau.

Cant get more grimdark than life in an Amazon distribution centre…

SamusDrake wrote:

 Geifer wrote:


Budgetary considerations aside, I don't know if that's desirable to GW. I'll draw a comparison to Black Library. Initially we got Imperium-centric bolter porn as the main fare. It took many years before Xenos perspectives were added, and similarly for crime and horror to emerge as book categories.

If I were a betting man I'd say GW wants to lead with a big spectacle featuring their most recognizable property to wow people and satisfying their core fans before they branch out into more specific or niche things.

I provided two Imperium centric settings as examples; BSF is mostly about Imperial Agents doing battle with Traitor Marines and Guard. Necromunda is set on an important Imperial Hive world. Here you can tap into LOTR, 2000AD(Judge Dredd) and even Mad Max. In the case of BSF you have a Deathstar like vessel that also taps into Starwars. In both examples Xenos are at best supporting characters, but for the most part just characters that the Imperial agents or citizens will bump into so they weren't my point.

My point wasn't Imperium-centric in isolation. I haven't seen more than a few games of Blackstone Fortress, but it's more of a dungeon crawly adventure story thingy? Party delves into ancient place to gather riches and stuff? That's not bolter porn, really. I don't disagree with you that it has the potential to provide a more nuanced look at the setting. I just don't think GW wants that for their first big outing.

As for Necromunda, even disregarding that it's better described as human-centric as there isn't a whole lot of Imperial perspective in the average Underhive scum, it's a spin-off. You don't start a franchise with a spin-off.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
Exactly that. There's also the matter of successfully introducing the satire of 40K, which is easily lost on many unless spelled out to them - which GW themselves had to do not long ago.

Extremely easily lost, when even after that statement so, so many claim that 40k hasn't been satire since Rogue Trader. Usually while at the same time as acknowledging how absurd, nonsensical, mocking and exaggerated many aspects of 40k are....but apparently that's not satire!

I'm not going to comment on how much satire is still in 40k since I can't bring myself to read modern stuff, but I think it's fair to point out that the drive to turn 40k into a (super)heroic, character-driven fantasy that started in 5th ed is a good way of getting people to believe that the game's direction has changed away from satire.

SamusDrake wrote:

 Geifer wrote:


Budgetary considerations aside, I don't know if that's desirable to GW. I'll draw a comparison to Black Library. Initially we got Imperium-centric bolter porn as the main fare. It took many years before Xenos perspectives were added, and similarly for crime and horror to emerge as book categories.

If I were a betting man I'd say GW wants to lead with a big spectacle featuring their most recognizable property to wow people and satisfying their core fans before they branch out into more specific or niche things.

I provided two Imperium centric settings as examples; BSF is mostly about Imperial Agents doing battle with Traitor Marines and Guard. Necromunda is set on an important Imperial Hive world. Here you can tap into LOTR, 2000AD(Judge Dredd) and even Mad Max. In the case of BSF you have a Deathstar like vessel that also taps into Starwars. In both examples Xenos are at best supporting characters, but for the most part just characters that the Imperial agents or citizens will bump into so they weren't my point.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gorgon wrote:


I like your thinking. Eisenhorn is just about ideal, IMO. Gamers' heads will immediately go to mass battles and such, but what will actually get viewers are compelling characters that they can get invested in. Not a cast of thousands and CGI warfare on some impossible scale.

Regarding Rings of Power, I thought its biggest failing was just that it was slow and a little dull. A lot of the other 'huge problems' didn't bother me. Tolkien fans are some of the very worst 'ackschully' folks out there.

Exactly that. There's also the matter of successfully introducing the satire of 40K, which is easily lost on many unless spelled out to them - which GW themselves had to do not long ago. Even Dune - the most popular sci-fi novel of all time - was lost on modern audiences when Denis had to defend it by stating that it wasn't a white-saviour fantasy. The marine brotherhood and sister...sisterhood themes also might be under fire from the pride audience for not being inclusive enough. A smaller and gradual introduction might make that easier...

But if there's a Titan with a full carapace, firm leg motors and a warm plasma engine....may no man try and stop me! I'll be there on opening night!

I think Eisenhorn is the thing to do. It’s human centric, got all the 40k staples (including Space Marines who are appropriately built up to in comparison to regular humans); but it’s also a engaging story with great characters and the book structure lends itself to self contained seasons that can be expanded into an ongoing narrative.

Eisenhorn is boring. There's so much more interesting stuff to mine from.

Eisenhorn is, however, likely able to fit into a sane budget. You can do a huge amount of it with regular people, regular sets and such.

As soon as you want to do Space Marines VS Tyranids on a war torn ice world then you've got to lean insanely heavily on CGI for a live action film. Even your costumes sets and such would have to be a huge investment.


Meanwhlie if you do Eisenhorn you can slow-grow things like a pool of sets, costumes and material. You can test things out; build up an inventory and generally work toward establishing a working system before tackling something much more complex.



Or you can use a live action to help grow the franchise in media and then lean into doing more animated works where you can go nuts with huge xenos armies and war torn futuristic planets. Because its all animation so you don't have to worry about huge greenscreens and vast CGI budgets and soforth.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

Greenfield wrote:
The statement on GW's investor relations site is much more non-committal: https://investor.games-workshop.com/news-posts/agreementtodevelopfilmsandtelevisionseries181223

It sounds like the deal is to continue development; a long way from anything ever getting.

Ha! I'm not surprised. I continue to be baffled that war-com marketing has been hyping this as much as they have. It's very... provincial, I think? GW comes off as quite naive here, as these are clearly still very early days for the project. They understand "show, not tell" when it comes to marketing models but not really when it comes to anything else.

This is about marketing to investors / the city, not to hobbyists. It's good for the share price.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
i'll be interested to see what eventually appears,

I actually think the biggest risk is that it does do (very) well and ends up prompting a big (US) company with a huge checkbook like Hasbro/Disney etc trying a takeover of GW and then blandificating it (even more) to try and make it appeal to the mainstream

Doubt it. If Hasbro didn't swoop when GW was undergoing all sorts of troubles during the flatlining end of Kirby's era, they won't now. GW at that time was genuinely undervalued with a treasure trove of IP and were the market leading wargaming company despite repeatedly shooting themselves in the face and Hasbro or equivalent still didn't go in. Now they're arguably overvalued unless the Amazon show somehow catapults the IP to a whole new level, which I'm not entirely sure it ever will. It definitely has the potential to add a substantial amount of new fans but 40k is always going to struggle to break out of a certain niche, it's too dark and grim to capture a Star Wars wide audience and a lot of the peope who like bad ass space marines have probably already found their way to it.

I actually found the most interesting part of the announcement today that Amazon have acquired some kind of option on Warhammer Fantasy as well, not AOS but WHFB. Firstly a sign of how much more culturally significant the WHFB IP is than AOS, even now. Secondly there's interesting potential there for all kinds of films, especially animated. It's the first time WHFB has been mentioned at all in relation to Amazon and an interesting side point.

 Londinium wrote:


I actually found the most interesting part of the announcement today that Amazon have acquired some kind of option on Warhammer Fantasy as well, not AOS but WHFB. Firstly a sign of how much more culturally significant the WHFB IP is than AOS, even now. Secondly there's interesting potential there for all kinds of films, especially animated. It's the first time WHFB has been mentioned at all in relation to Amazon and an interesting side point.

It might also just be that Old World is very easily made with all those assets they've developed for the Rings of Power and other things. AoS is insanely high fantasy with even the land being wild and super charged. It's another "big CGI budget" affair to do right with any kind of live action. Meanwhile Old World you can do with a grimy old Medieval/Victorian set of props and such.

So chances are its again leaning on what's the most viable for a live action adaptation with a lower amount of investment to get it going.

Billicus wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

Greenfield wrote:
The statement on GW's investor relations site is much more non-committal: https://investor.games-workshop.com/news-posts/agreementtodevelopfilmsandtelevisionseries181223

It sounds like the deal is to continue development; a long way from anything ever getting.

Ha! I'm not surprised. I continue to be baffled that war-com marketing has been hyping this as much as they have. It's very... provincial, I think? GW comes off as quite naive here, as these are clearly still very early days for the project. They understand "show, not tell" when it comes to marketing models but not really when it comes to anything else.

This is about marketing to investors / the city, not to hobbyists. It's good for the share price.

It may turn out to be good for the share price, but a savvy investor should understand that this sort of thing falls apart all the time. In fact, (this is mostly in jest and probably won't land with any of you) hyping this non-existent deal as a deal could be construed as a form of securities fraud, because everything is securities fraud (that's a Matt Levine Money Stuff reference).

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

Billicus wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

Greenfield wrote:
The statement on GW's investor relations site is much more non-committal: https://investor.games-workshop.com/news-posts/agreementtodevelopfilmsandtelevisionseries181223

It sounds like the deal is to continue development; a long way from anything ever getting.

Ha! I'm not surprised. I continue to be baffled that war-com marketing has been hyping this as much as they have. It's very... provincial, I think? GW comes off as quite naive here, as these are clearly still very early days for the project. They understand "show, not tell" when it comes to marketing models but not really when it comes to anything else.

This is about marketing to investors / the city, not to hobbyists. It's good for the share price.

It may turn out to be good for the share price, but a savvy investor should understand that this sort of thing falls apart all the time. In fact, (this is mostly in jest and probably won't land with any of you) hyping this non-existent deal as a deal could be construed as a form of securities fraud, because everything is securities fraud (that's a Matt Levine Money Stuff reference).

Try telling that to Warhammer Reddit right now. I don't think I've ever I have seen a more shining example of putting the proverbial cart before the horse in all my years...

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
It may turn out to be good for the share price, but a savvy investor should understand that this sort of thing falls apart all the time. In fact, (this is mostly in jest and probably won't land with any of you) hyping this non-existent deal as a deal could be construed as a form of securities fraud, because everything is securities fraud (that's a Matt Levine Money Stuff reference).

LOL yeah. Until they're shooting something (and even then things can happen), it's best to assume this will fall through at some stage. 'Development Hell' is real.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
... as there seems to be a large portion of fans these days who seem to think you're meant to root for the Imperium and who make out that they're the the best thing for humanity in the setting.

And just as many people who think there are no good guys in 40k, which is just as false.

Reading this article again, do they only have the rights to 40k? Considering they don't have a specific plan I thought there was at least a potential of WHFB/AoS/Horus Heresy etc but it specifically says 40k and nothing else.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
... as there seems to be a large portion of fans these days who seem to think you're meant to root for the Imperium and who make out that they're the the best thing for humanity in the setting.

And just as many people who think there are no good guys in 40k, which is just as false.

Just who are you considering as that?

From a licensing standpoint, GW has only two universes: Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy.

Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000 (and Necromunda and probably a bunch of others) are both *lines* within the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Age of Sigmar and The Old World/Warhammer Fantasy are both *lines* within the Warhammer Fantasy universe. Amazon basically has rights to everything GW.

chaos0xomega wrote:
From a licensing standpoint, GW has only two universes: Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy.

Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000 (and Necromunda and probably a bunch of others) are both *lines* within the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Age of Sigmar and The Old World/Warhammer Fantasy are both *lines* within the Warhammer Fantasy universe. Amazon basically has rights to everything GW.

Where are you getting that from? Giving someone the license to 40k doesn't also give the license to something like the Horus Heresy or Fantasy giving both Age of Sigmar and WHFB. They're their own things with separate licensing.

That's not really how licensing works.

I mean, it is if you are talking about "lines" in this context, but there are different "containers" that licenses can fall within (line, universe, franchise, brand, etc. These terms are not generally interchangeable and are subject to how a licensor defines them). Per one of the recent GW financial reports there was a section where they discussed having two "universes". The warhammer 40,000 universe was inclusive of horus heresy, the warhammer fantasy universe was Age of sigmar and said something about how it was "soon to be joined by" The Old World or something to that effect.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Because I always feel compelled to prove myself - this wasn't the piece I was thinking of, but it was the first one I found (in the most recent full year report :

"We have two main universes/settings - our dark, gritty fantasy sci-fi universe, which encompasses ‘Warhammer 40,000’, ‘Warhammer The Horus Heresy’ and ‘Necromunda’, and our unique fantasy setting that includes ‘Warhammer Age of Sigmar’, ‘Blood Bowl’ (albeit a tongue in cheek parody) and, the soon to be released, ‘Warhammer The Old World’. We believe our IP to be among the best in the world."

GW always parcels out their IPs in discrete units. Its rare that someone just gets the license for "Warhammer" or "40k".

Many of them are much more specific, especially with all the shovelware games they've made over the years, where they were for one specific thing and nothing beyond the scope of that. There's no guarantee that getting the rights to 40k gives them the rights to The Horus Heresy. It's a different trademark.