Why is there no live action Warhammer 40,000 movie? Is games workshop just unwilling to share copy rights with anyone who could make it? Is there anyone who would want to make it? Is the setting just too high scifi to effectively translate to live action without a comically large budget? What would you expect from the movie if it was being made? Do you think it would star an ultramarine or an Inquisitor?
Warhammer 40k movie
Adrian Garcia
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Angel Morris
Your constant exposure to the echo chamber of Veeky Forums has made you believe that 40k is more popular than it actually is.
In real life, GW is a tiny non-entity and 40k is basically nonexistent. Dungeons & Dragons at least has brand recognition.
Caleb Long
Because. Not for free. Not for the tens of millions it would cost. Yes. Complaints from the fanbase. Neither.
Luke Moore
Kinda what i meant when i said "is there anyone who would want to make it?"
Hunter Brooks
Wtf this is even supposed to mean
Austin Perez
He's relied to all the questions the OP asked, in order.
Chase Jackson
The short answer is that it wouldn't be a good return on investment for all parties involved. There have been offers in the past, but they've never worked out.
40k, generally speaking, is defined by its grand scale: sweeping vistas of battle field, star ships that are kilometers long, hordes of monsters that blot out the sky, etc. So if we want to do that justice we need money, and money means Hollywood.
Once Hollywood gets involved, the bottom line becomes even more important, which means that they'll try to give the setting more mass appeal. GW has been historically very guarded about the dilution of its settings. Laugh all you want, but remember that it wasn't until fairly recently that they started widely licensing video games. Before that they were *extremely* cautious about such things, carefully vetting licensed computer games both out of concern for the preservation of their brand and out of (rather misguided) fear of competition that could replace their games.
So, GW is already reticent to let outsiders come in and muck around with their fluff too much. The next issue is merchandising: there would be a genuine threat that whoever produced the film could use legalese to essentially start marketing their own competing line of 40k games/miniatures/toys/etc. Merchandising for big budget films is a HUGE part of their bottom line, and the idea that you could produce a 40k film but not make action figures to sell to the kids who see it would be absolutely absurd to a Hollywood producer. You'd be dumping money into a long-shot project and cutting yourself off from your best chance at making that money back all at once.
Basically, all of the costs for both sides of the deal would be way too high, the potential for failure would be too great, and the chances that the end product would be worth everyone's time would be slim.
(1/2)
Ryder Robinson
(2/2)
Now, sure you could go the independent route and make a low-budget, gritty sort of war-horror film or something, but without the budget to properly render all the weirdness of the 40k verse you'd wind up either doing it very poorly, thus diluting/damaging the brand, or you'd have to concentrate on the stuff you could conventionally render cheaply, which basically means guardsmen and maybe chaos cultists. As great as such a film could be, it's at this point that a potential filmmaker could probably just pull the chunks of the fluff that they like and create their own setting without bothering to license from GW. After all, you can't trade mark gothic architecture, latin, demon worship or World War One. It'd wind up similar to something like "Underworld" which is basically a World of Darkness film with the setting simplified.
Now, GW might still experiment with low budget animated films like Ultramarines, and of course there's very impressive fan work out there, but the only way a giant Hollywood-style 40k film would be made is if GW was bought by a larger company with ties to something like Disney.
Anyway, that's my take on things. If you google around a bit you can find some comments on the subject made by people who actually work for the company which should be informative..
Isaiah Jenkins
Op aks yourself this question.
Do you REALLY want hollywood to make a 40k movie?
Adrian Taylor
This. Just like Gundam, Warhammer fans should not want a Hollywood movie made for their franchise.
Noah Parker
I must say that I certainly don't...
Christopher Gomez
Look at the Warcraft movie and ask that question again.
>GW doesn't have that kind of money
>none of its fans have that kind of money
>Hollywood wouldn't be interested at all if they didn't think they could flip a profit
>Hollywood couldn't make a decent rendition even if they did get paid a shit-ton for it
>a mainstream film would probably hurt the series more than help it
Just enjoy the fan material and occasional game cinematics.
Brody Brown
youtube.com
You do know we've been down this road before, right?
Austin Ross
Pitch this movie to me. I bet it sounds stupid.
Eli Watson
Make a god damn Sisters of Battle movie you neckbeards.
Zachary Stewart
I've got a copy of Damnatus, which will do. German is a surprisingly fitting language for the Imperium
Lincoln Smith
We also have the Ultramarines movie. Lord Inquisitor is canned as a 40k film and being redone as a new IP to dodge copyright.
For more current, and possibly more successful movies, Helsreach is being adapted from the audiobook into a video series; it's sparse but it does a fairly good job if you don't mind occasionally seeing reused Half-Life assets. The most promising fan-movie seems to be "Death of Hope," which is a 30k movie set at the Betrayal at Calth, and has a dedicated fan team and a trailer out.
Lucas Edwards
You have one (and I agree about German), but both versions I knew of have been taken off YouTube. Is it available anywhere else online?
Ultramarines is TERRIBLE.
Julian Flores
I feel like you nailed it. Also worth mentioning that Ultramarines' (and Warcraft's too in my opinion) failure has probably put them off even considering the idea for a long time. GW realised long ago that their most valuable asset is their IPs and it's clear that everything they've been doing has been to strengthen or protect that. A shot at the silver screen would be too big a gamble.
Cameron Perez
40k is not famous enough. It got some exposure via novels and games, but still its nowhere as well known as Lotr, Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel, DC...
Then there is the issue of money. A 40k movie would cost a ton of cash and nobody will make that investment
Another issue is the tone of the setting. It's just too grim and violent. And PG-13 movies are where the money is.
All in all. I think a good 40k movie could actually be quite successful, but more likely we'd end up with a shitty action sci-fi flick. And nobody is gonna invest so much money into something that would most likely flop.
Dominic Jenkins
I liked the Warcraft movie, though the human parts could've been better.
But yeah, it shows how even a huge brand like Warcraft can flop.
Brody Ramirez
Elijah Powell
Those are some expensive actors you got there.
And HBO? You want it to end up a fan-pandering inconsistent trash like GoT?
Mason Price
Small scale movies would be fantastic, in my opinion. The first few short stories of "The Magos" are made for this. They usually feature about six characters, and the fight scenes are limited to things like a handful of guys against an ork or a singular hormagant.
Charles Roberts
>fan-pandering inconsistent trash
So pretty much the Black Library Horus Heresy stuff already?
John Allen
I haven't read much of the newer HH. I read Crimson King, which was meh.
Luis White
Genndy could pull it off
youtu.be
Owen Bennett
>canned as a 40k film
Don't say canned about cancelled films. Canned means the film has been made
Parker Wood
>Lord Inquisitor is canned as a 40k film and being redone as a new IP to dodge copyright
Really? I thought the guy just had to swear that he wont do it for profit.
Henry Gray
High autism energy here
Nathaniel Reyes
He had to, and then realized somewhere down the line that he'd rather get paid for his work, therefore he canned it after releasing the prologue.
Alexander Foster
>You have one (and I agree about German), but both versions I knew of have been taken off YouTube. Is it available anywhere else online?
youtube.com
Christopher Wright
There already is a live action 40k movie. It's short, though.
Landon Nelson
Great reply.
Still, creating a game like Ultramarine costs like an hollywood movie...kinda
Julian Garcia
That makes sense, given how much work he put into it.
Brandon Gonzalez
Absolutely, I just wish he'd had that realization after he was done with Lord Inquisitor and not somewhere in the middle.
Thomas Foster
The only way we get a 40k movie would be if some billionaire was a huge 40k nerd and wouldn't mind spending 200+ million on it and not care about profit. Maybe crowdfund another 50-100 million from fans.
Jaxon Young
After what? 8 years of work?