Potential for a W40K TV series or film

[Boldthreat]

Ugh... Do you guys even remember Ultramarines? The writing was bad, the CGI was bad and the movie was bad.

 

But if down this road we must go, then here we go...

 

The first thing I think needs stated is the movie needs to be about Space Marines. I get the idea of why the movie should focus on the Inquisition and regular humans; but the reality is 40k's flagship has been and will always be Space Marines. For the most part it is the Space Marines that draw the new players in and it's the same here. I get the problems associated with this technology-wise, but if they are going to invest in a movie then go big and spend the money. No cheap Netflix stuff that avoids the big stuff to just hint at all of it in the background. The first film needs to be Captain America, not Jessica Jones.

 

And it needs to be a proper movie. I'm going to bypass the toys/merchandise issue as I know nothing about that. But we need a proper 2 hour feature that is standalone and can properly keep new audiances entertained and engaged and serve as a entry vehicle into the wider verse and or more movies.

 

So what should the movie be about? Initially my gut reaction is a story similar or heavily influenced by Angels of Darkness. That story is such a good entry point into 40k; the grim darkness of the setting and ticks almost all of the boxes to what makes 40k, 40k. It shows us what Space Marines are. It shows us a fight against orks with regular human forces involved. It has this compelling interrogation back and forth that serves as a vehicle to explain the 10,000 year history of the setting and the Heresy. And it has a great ending that is grim and harsh and perfect. Add a piece in the beginning showing the harsh recruitment process of going from boy to Chaplain and you would have a film that is, IMHO, the archtypical story of what 40k is about.

 

But, then I think about it more. As a marketing tool, would you not want your movie to reference your current miniature line and setting? I would think so. So the movie would probably have to take place in the Dark Imperium setting. Don't stone me. And if you do that then you probably want it to focus on your flagship line and Chapter. So Primaris Ultramarines. Dare they go big and have the movie deal with the Plague Wars? Make Guilliman and Mortarian the main characters? That would provide a vehicle to show the viewers what the universe is about, it's 10,000 year history between these characters and the current state of the setting. That could work.

[Evil Eye]

Personally I want a low-budget practical-effects comedy in the line of Red Dwarf or Blackadder, set on the ship of the most useless inquisitor ever, with occasional clips to the front-line on some war-torn world (featuring a few Guardsman, a Space Marine and a Sister of Battle stuck away from the supply lines) and the Warp, where the Gods of Chaos (having had to move into an apartment together after spending all their money on opening the Great Rift and accidentally crashing their own economy) try and live with each other.

 

In all seriousness, I'm not sure how I'd go about making a 40K movie/TV series. Netflix originals/watch on demand services have made more niche projects possible, so a TV series with a proper budget is possible and arguably more viable than a theatrical movie. Live action would be awesome, but I have a feeling it would probably be CGI.

 

What I'd really like is for someone to go back in time and give the license to Madhouse or Artmic or some other decent anime studio in the late 80s/early 90s and get a gritty, beautifully animated 40K OVA. Not only would it look amazing and (assuming you got the right people) be fun as hell, but it's probably the only way you'd get the kind of violence that 40K features in motion (see: Genocyber, which whilst not a good series is a fine example of anime ultraviolence). Sadly you'd have to get a time machine to do so as IMO that kind of thing just doesn't work without genuine ink-on-cel, not to mention the OVA market itself just not being what it was.

[Halandaar]

And it needs to be a proper movie. I'm going to bypass the toys/merchandise issue as I know nothing about that. But we need a proper 2 hour feature that is standalone and can properly keep new audiances entertained and engaged and serve as a entry vehicle into the wider verse and or more movies.

 

There's no chance of it ever happening though, because it's too risky financially. It's a niche IP with a huge requirement for CGI to make it work, and anybody considering such a project would surely look to Warcraft as a barometer. Despite having a much more widely known IP than 40k and it's success in China, the movie was still a failure and made a loss overall. Further examples of the risk come from Valerian and Jupiter Ascending; both proper sci-fi efforts with elements of space-gothic and weird xenos, with huge budgets and big names behind them, which both made big losses.

 

Obviously more human-centric stories will be much easier to shoot, and a series about Rogue Traders presented as 40k Firefly works for me as an idea, but remember that Firefly was cancelled after only a single season and barring the Serenity movie (which was also a box office failure), was never revisited, in spite of it's cult status.

[Ironwrought Huw]

I think the biggest problem is the audience. Who exactly are we aiming the TV series / Movie at? Are we simply pandering to existing long-term fans, trying to drum up more wallets a bigger (and potentially more diverse) fanbase, or something in between? (Apologies in advance if this comes across as a box ticking exercise)

 

I think the safest bet would be to start small, and go with TV a series (whether it’s shown on TV or a streaming service is another matter). I’d say that something in between the BBC’s Sherlock and HBO’s Game of Thrones would perhaps be the most practical format, of a short series of six 90 minute-ish episodes – it’d allow for a nice balance of plot/character development and (importantly) explaining just enough of the basics of the universe to any audience members who have yet to encounter Warhammer 40K. As for the topic, this may be a little controversial, but if we’re doing a TV series I’d veto war and the battlefield. Go for the Abnett & Mitchell ‘human side’ of the Warhammer universe. I think it’s a far greater way to introduce someone to the 40K universe than dropping them straight in to the middle of the Battle of Macragge, or the Fall of Cadia. Also speaking from a practical point, it’ll be easier to film.

 

I personally vote for the Ciaphas Cain series. From personal experience of trying to introduce people to 40K, lending them the novels has been one of the more successful ways. Although it’s light-hearted, it isn’t outright comedy; it remains serious and true to the setting’s tone (see: Perlia after the Ork invasion – one of the grimmest descriptions I’ve ever read, fairly vivid details of the human suffering in an invasion).

 

It’s able to shows the ‘human side’ of the 40K setting very well, and that it’s not all just fancy spacemen shooting other spacemen – there are relatable characters, all trying to survive and live out their lives in what’s a frankly nightmarish universe. There’s already a solid list of regular and recurring characters, which expands over the series. And what’s more, the characters are fairly diverse. I’m not claiming that they’re perfect for providing representation, but the ground work is at least already there – you’re unlikely to get complaints of “shoehorning X, Y or Z” into the series, or cries of “that techpriest is a girl! OMG series ruined forever!!111!”

 

Personally I’d say that the first novel, For the Emperor, would make an excellent TV series. The book is broken up quite well into sections that could easily be edited together into episodes.

Ep1: Background, arrival to the 301^st/296^th and creation of the 597^th.
Ep2: Planetfall & the Tau: what goes on when a regiment deploys to a planet for war. Digression onto the bewildering variety and nature of planets in the Imperium.
Ep3: Ballrooms and bullets: The ball at the governor’s palace, meeting Amberly, end on the assassination
Ep4: The aftermath of the assassination, escaping the city…
etc…

 

You don’t have to follow the novels or the short stories – Cain has done so much in his life that you could quite easily make an entirely new plot up. You’ve got the intrigue & politics, the dirty dozen style commando raids, huge set piece battles. Almost all the factions have appeared in the novels or have been referenced. There’s even romance… In my mind, you can’t go wrong with Cain. It’s almost as if Sandy Mitchell has some kind of background in screenwriting for TV…

 

[Doghouse]

I'm personally not so sure it would be a good idea. If I were in their shoes I'd wait and see how the Mega City One series pans out, for us fans it'd be great to see 40k in the flesh but on the flip side of that I'm not sure I want every aspect of the lore spelled out for me and how do you condense 40k into a series or single film? 

 

The other problem I can see is who is the target audience? WoW had an established audience in their player base and similar brand recognition to Warhammer but didn't do well at the box office outside of China.

 

Also how much do Hollywood get to interfere with the script? Do we want another Ultramarines level of success with a few CGI battle shots thrown in where we look back in a few years and say yeah the battles were cool but the story sucked and they ignored the lore?

 

Something made on a low-ish budget that was made for us through Black Library like that Hell's Reach fan made CGI on Youtube I'd be all over in a heart beat.

 

If they did do a big budget film I'd bet anything it's called Warhammer! :D

[Lay]

It will be about Marines. Hell, it better be about Marines. If you want to "introduce" people to the setting just show them the most iconic stuff you got.

 

Case in point:

[Axineton]

Well Danny Trejo is down to play any space marine so I'm in

 

Sorry about the size of the pic I don't know how to resize it

 

[Lay]

We found our Captain Cortez.

[Skaorn]

There are several problems with idea that would crop up immediatel around themes, profitability, and what gets altered to address making the setting marketable. Not only do you have ultraviolence where no one would even make a negative comment about acts that would be considered war crimes but your "heroes" would be from an totalitarian extremist religious government that draws strongly from Christianity. You won't see any TV networks taking a series where you're supposed to cheer for the guys trying to burn the witch. Major studios will also try to do some serious alterations to setting, like Chaos being an extradimensional infection, so that Chaos cultists are more like 28 Days later infected, or that the heroes are fighting against the terrible oppressive government. Genocide? Not for the good guys, oh no (not that I'm actually against portraying genocide as anything but evil). You might want Orks, but they didn't really test well with test groups because they didn't get the humor and thought they looked silly. Even minor production companies will probably end up putting out something like the Warzone movie SyFy did a few years ago.

 

I think the most likely scenario to see a 40k movie or series would go direct to DVD and might get picked up by a streaming service. I really doubt GW would try to directly fund one themselves rather than license it, and you probably don't want them to. I was recently watching a documentary on Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future which was backed directly by Hasbro iirc. They talked about how the show did really well when they got good time slots, even beating out ST: TNG when competing with it. Because the toys didn't sell well though, the show was killed despite having a good amount of success. I think GW would do the same if they weren't seeing a dramatic increase in sales, even if it was successful while staying true to the setting. It's a big risk that would require a big payout.

[Master Commander Ajax]

Judge Dredd is a good example of the pitfalls and problems a 40k movie would face. Like 40k it is a much loved and well established, violent, British, Sci-fi franchise. The first attempt at a big screen adaptation was the awful 'Judge Dredd' in 1995 and then In 2012 we got the vastly superior 'Dredd'. However, whilst the second film was critically superior to its predecessor and much more loyal to the source material it also made less than half as much money as the first adaptation (and this isn't taking into account inflation). This 'new GW' appears to be less sentimental with its IP than it has been historically. In fact, their rigidity with regards to their IP is why we saw very few video game adaptations in 40k's earlier years (it's also why the lore changes in Dark Imperium caused such a hoo-har). I worry that in order to create a viable 40k movie we will see a 'watering down' of the source material in order to appeal to a wider audience. This isn't to say that it's not possible to do both but it does seem like a tall order to me.

[Wulf Vengis]

Give me a band of brothers style show based on the last chancers any day.

[NiceGuyAdi]

I shuddder to think what would happen if a Hollywood studio got hold of the 40k IP. I imagine something like:

 

(90mins exposition)+(45minsx2 Primarchs punching each other)-(meaningful resolution)+(credit sequence+another primarch introduction)=sequel+money

 

Dredd is the only film I can think of that was tonally about right for 40k, and that wasn’t a financial success, although it was dead before the marketing finished, bring so heavily pushed on 3D, which was in its death throes, and having an almost identical synopsis to The Raid which came out just before it.

 

An anime style series I can see working though. Lower budget, so lower creative clampdown from bean counters would allow some more interesting stories from the setting to be explored.

[Focslain]

Ciaphas Cain would work as an anime as long as the right studio gets it, and follows the books near to the letter like they have with the current Legend of Galactic Heroes series.

 

It would also be a good intro to the 40K universe in general as those that have followed his adventures know he has met every faction in 40K less the Imperial Knights.

 

On the Knights the book Kingsblade also seems to be written as a grim mecha series.  

[Red_Shift]

Last chancers actually is a good shout but it might be a bit dark for casual viewers.

[Kinstryfe]

My usual response to things like this is to think of the ideas that are possible and ask "Why does this need to be done in the 40k universe?". For example, most stories of the Astra Militarum will, frankly, not be stories that need the 40k setting to be effective stories. They're war stories in space. I love those, I love my guard, but stories of the guard could be written in any generic sci-fi setting and be mostly the same, because the Imperial Guard are just normal humans in space. If you look at 40k's origins at just Warhammer Fantasy in space, and Warhammer Fantasy was basically just fantasy and Tolkien tropes on the tabletop, you realize that you need some of the more unique elements to have it really need the 40k setting.

 

That means Space Marines. Guard are just people. Tyranids are Geiger aliens meets Starship Troopers. Aeldari are elves, T'au are anime communists, Necrons are robo-undead, Orks are (duh) Orcs, and Chaos is every Saturday morning cartoon or old movie serial moustache twirling villain. Even Astartes are pretty much an older trope, but they are at least /visually/ distinct and have the most developed background of all the factions. So most other factions don't really need 40k to be a story, and wouldn't gain much by being in the setting except to appeal to people who already know the setting. Along with Marines come issues of visual effects which really mess things up.

 

I think the most successful iteration they could do would be to do something in the adult animation sphere, where they can be as humorously over the top as they want. It will also let them explore whatever they'd want without worry about cost. The other option is for kiddy animation, which basically gets into toys and merch and all that other stuff.

 

As much as I'd love any sort of live action 40k, I'm not sure they'd figure out a way to make it appeal to the general audience and still keep current fans happy.

[Jackalwolf]

As many have stated, I would start it small and localised on Imperial culture. Grimdark is the one staple of this franchise and that can be shown without need of crazy massive called.

 

Altered Carbon is pretty much the perfect way to start but having some insidious chaos mystery as the plot, even the ambience is bang on the buck.

 

As the first series ends, it gives a bit more of perspective on the Imperium now that the audience is acquainted with grimdark.

 

Easier to invest on if the first proof of concept doesn't go crazy with budget.

[Ishagu]

Keep chaos out of it to begin with, have some weird alien story instead.

 

You don't want to start with the most ott stuff right away but build up to it do it becomes more acceptable to non fans.

[Marshal Rohr]

Anime would blow. Hard. 40k is not for anime and the two should never, ever mix.

 

Live action would be impossible without significant resources they won’t be able to secure. Infinity War had a CGI cast and it’s painfully obvious when something is CGI and when it’s real. You’d have to do 40k like Blade Runner 2049 or the LotR trilogy and I just can’t see any studies forking cash for that.

[Ratherdashing]

The problem is that 40k as a setting is designed to be adaptable to the type of story you want to tell. Meaning picking one tone and level of grimdark would leave out everyone who has a different interpretation of the setting.

 

I like 40k as a story of flawed heroes making tough decisions against impossible odds. I also like how 40k is a mishmash of a million genres and inspirations, from the Starship Troopers, Judge Dredd, and Predator mentioned above, to Asimov (Foundation specifically), The Thirteenth Warrior (Space Wolves and Prospero Burns in particular), and Enemy at the Gates (or other war movies represented by the IG).

 

But would a movie be that version of the setting? Or would it be the one from the 8th edition rulebook, where slaves wake up from their hours in the breeding pits to be collared and led in chains to their torturous toil in radioactive mines, before being lucky enough to be thrown into the meat grinder that their biological slurry may be used in some way for the good of Man? As someone who likes stories of heroism, I have to headcanon out the blurbs that tell me that there are no heroes, there is no happiness. No soldier goes home to hug his wife, no general inspires his men, no grateful citizens look up at the departing ships of the heroes who saved them. Everyone lives in constant torment and only bothers to do so by fear of the even worse torment waiting in The Warp.

 

That is, to many fans and writers, the real setting of 40k. But I just don't think you can tell a story in that setting. Only War doesn't last for a whole movie.

 

Of course, BL books exist, and sone seem to tell good stories. But they do that by dialing back the grimdark, and many fans seem to consider them "wrong" to do so. For a major budget movie to work, it needs at *least* to have all the 40k fans on board. And I don't think you can make a movie that pleases all of us, since we all have different ideas of what the setting should be.

[USNCenturion]

There’s far more chance that a 40k movie/series is done poorly and flops than it takes off like a GoT or Altered Carbon even.

 

Everyone wants their favorite IP developed into a live action or cartoon movie, until you get one done like Bloodrayne, Super Mario, Enders Game, In the Name of the King, etc etc etc. Then nobody wants anymore of it and you’ve even turned off some of your base.

 

Keep it limited to tabletop and Black Library.

[Axineton]

Personally I’d love a Horus heresy series on amazon or Netflix. None of this anime nonsense or a movie. If got and man in the high castle can be adapted I’m sure in the right hands some HH can be done too.

[CaptainMarsh]

I had an idea once for a TV series that centered on a single hive. There was a war going right outside of it that involved "haha what" size numbers, an inquisitor and acolytes hunting down Cults (of more than one variety), and a bunch of the absurdity that is the bedrock of 40k. Then I realized that it would take more money than existed to realize these fanciful images in my head and decided to keep it there.

[Evil Eye]

Anime would blow. Hard. 40k is not for anime and the two should never, ever mix.

I mean, it depends on the anime. If you're talking Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura then absolutely, but there's a lot of (admittedly mostly older) anime that's on a similar level of grimdark to 40K. Heck, even something as well-known and ubiquitous as Gundam (or at least, the good ones) with its "War is hell" theme gets pretty grim at times. Whilst granted there's never (to my knowledge) been an anime that is basically 40K, a lot of the concepts have been explored in anime. Warnings of the dangers of playing god with forces beyond our understanding? Akira, Evangelion and countless others. The sheer mind-numbing horrors of human conflict? Pretty much every "real robot" mecha series ever. Flat-out absurdist bleakness with an unhealthy dose of ultraviolence? Countless OVAs of varying quality. Heck, even ostensibly fluffy-looking series like Puella Magi Madoka Magica have rather 40K-like themes, notably bargaining away your soul for power or personal gain, and grand tragedy. If you're talking about the artstyles, there's many, many, many different styles of anime art. I mean, if you're talking about soft, pastel-styled "moe" stuff then yeah fair enough. But look at stuff like Berserk or Fist of the North Star, or the works of Junji Ito- a lot of them fit 40K to a tee.

[Mazryonh]

 

Anime would blow. Hard. 40k is not for anime and the two should never, ever mix.

I mean, it depends on the anime. If you're talking Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura then absolutely, but there's a lot of (admittedly mostly older) anime that's on a similar level of grimdark to 40K. Heck, even something as well-known and ubiquitous as Gundam (or at least, the good ones) with its "War is hell" theme gets pretty grim at times. Whilst granted there's never (to my knowledge) been an anime that is basically 40K, a lot of the concepts have been explored in anime. Warnings of the dangers of playing god with forces beyond our understanding? Akira, Evangelion and countless others. The sheer mind-numbing horrors of human conflict? Pretty much every "real robot" mecha series ever. Flat-out absurdist bleakness with an unhealthy dose of ultraviolence? Countless OVAs of varying quality. Heck, even ostensibly fluffy-looking series like Puella Magi Madoka Magica have rather 40K-like themes, notably bargaining away your soul for power or personal gain, and grand tragedy. If you're talking about the artstyles, there's many, many, many different styles of anime art. I mean, if you're talking about soft, pastel-styled "moe" stuff then yeah fair enough. But look at stuff like Berserk or Fist of the North Star, or the works of Junji Ito- a lot of them fit 40K to a tee.

 

 

Junji Itou? I like to think that Tomie, one of his most famous female villains, was a unique Slaaneshi daemon who "reproduces" in a very 40k way. Parts of Fist of the North Star look and sound a bit like Necromunda too. 

 

But in any case, 40k doesn't lend itself very well to movie-style save-the-world sci-fi plots. There is often no "checkmate condition" in real war in modern conflicts; likewise, wars in 40k are grinding affairs fought bolt-shell by bolt-shell and corpse by corpse. That doesn't make for a good two-hour popcorn movie, though there are exceptions, like the HH novel Know No Fear which, if fully adapted, would make even Michael Bay envious. 

 

Do we really want just another episode of "bolter porn" though? At the same time, do we really want to see the grinding hopelessness that typifies the vast majority of human experience to be depicted in a GoT-style series? A lot of what's mentioned in the 40k background just isn't very relatable to most people or even enjoyable for the mythical "wider audience." A lot of 40k is also typified by Pyrrhic victories, and audiences can quickly get tired of that. 

 

After all, audiences need a degree of hope in a story to come away feeling better, or at least that something could have been done better. But as 40k says, hope breeds disappointment, and hope is also one of Tzeentch's favourite things. Where are we going to put the hope in the story when most of humanity has likely never heard of, or ever experienced, such a thing? Even the best among the Space Marines (unless your name is Guilliman) can't expect anything better than a glorious death in battle in a war that never ends, and so does the vast majority of Astra Militarum. 

 

In the end, I don't think it's the medium that decides whether or not a 40k adaptation to TV, animation, or movie is a good piece of 40k fiction, it's how well it's executed, cast, and written that will determine how well it fits into 40k as a whole and whether it comes off well to 40k's core audience. 

[Schlitzaf]

Honestly a 40k movie that do Well is something that looks like ‘Pacific Rim’. As in a story that relishes being a story. A story that you want to live and want to become. To quite someone earlier, no one wants to be a gaurdsman (we empathize with the Gaurdsman and love the idea but don’t want to be the Gaurdsman).

 

You want to be the Space Marine, you want to kill the Xenos. To be the angel of death, to the deliverance of the Emperor against its enemies. To be humanity’s finest, first, last and greatest defense against that which goes bump in the night.

 

To be humanities ‘hope’. But before I derail this into what is hope. All the examples here I see is something you can do with any verse. Why would use an expensive IP? If I were, it be some kind of animation-CGI tokuetsu, similar to pacific rim. Follow a single marine, just finishing his scout hood. And then goes on various deployments, and then each time he faces greater and greater threat more of his battle brothers die.

 

Then end on the final one. Now this plot sounds similar to Ultramarine because the core premise of Ultramarines plot wasn’t bad. But it was poorly executed and poorly written, change it from a single squad to a whole company. Have initial threat be a rebellion, I’d say Genestealer Cult move up the totem pole. Until you head into the central hive and deal with the Patriarch. Whom can pick off heroes one at a time.

 

Then you can setup a sequel to deal with a Tyranid Hive Fleet. And through the Hive Fleet begin interacting with chaos (perhaps Nurgle). Which corrupted the Tyranids Norm Queens. Then handling this. You depending on setup got a second or third movie. Just my food for thought.