Back in January, as part of its half-yearly report, Games Workshop said of Warhammer that “we own what we believe is some of the most underexploited intellectual property globally”. Corpo-speak aside, I think it’s true—there’s an odd aspect to the worlds of Warhammer that they’re very widely loved, but the main way of engaging with them is still via quite a specific, niche hobby.
Regularly I meet people who love the lore, the artwork, and the vibes of Warhammer, but simply don’t have the bandwidth to build an army of little plastic men—and they’re very limited in how they can interact with it as a result. There’s a reason GW sell so many of those damn Horus Heresy books—it’s because it’s one of the only ways of getting into Warhammer that doesn’t involve a paintbrush.
GW is keen for that to change. “We intend to ensure Warhammer’s place as one of the top fantasy IPs globally,” it said in that same report. Part of that plan is guiding Warhammer videogames onto a more successful path—with Space Marine 2 bringing in millions for them last year, that already seems to be well in motion. But the bigger and potentially more important part is bringing Warhammer to film and television.
We’ve been hearing Games Workshop (and Henry Cavill) gesture at a Warhammer cinematic universe for years now, but as of the end of last year, the partnership with Amazon does seem to be getting ready to bear fruit finally. But making Warhammer work on screen is not going to be an easy task, especially with so much riding on it. Get it right and Warhammer could break into the mainstream like never before—but get it wrong, and it could be a laughing stock.
But how do you get it right? What’s the key to making a Warhammer cinematic universe with broad appeal? Well, as a fan of the franchise for over 20 years now, I’ve got some ideas. Listen up, Games Workshop and Amazon. Er, if you’re open to suggestions.
Keep it small
This might feel counter-intuitive, but almost all fan speculation I’ve seen around this project seems to me wildly over-ambitious. If you’re imagining a full TV show of the Horus Heresy, with Henry Cavill as the Emperor, I think you’re thinking far too big.
Warhammer 40,000 is a universe that exists at an absurd scale, and it is important to convey that. But live action film and television has its own limitations, and budgets here are not likely to be enormous. The story will need to be confined to what can be represented well on screen.
That means a non-stop parade of planet-spanning wars isn’t going to be feasible. And I’ll go one step further: I don’t think it’s going to be possible to make Space Marines the stars of the show, despite their prominent role in the setting. Every moment they exist in a scene will be its own special effects challenge, and if the resources aren’t there, they’re going to look goofy, not imposing.
So how do you go small in fiction’s biggest universe?
The key is to tell a story set primarily inside the Imperium, rather than on the battlefield. A few sweeping shots of a sprawling CGI hive city or a colossal spaceship can help give a sense of scale to a show that can then tell a lot of its story on relatively simple sets with human characters.
Back in 2019, Games Workshop said an Eisenhorn TV show would be part of this cinematic universe. Whether that’s still the plan six years on, I don’t know, but it does seem an ideal candidate. The Eisenhorn trilogy of books follows an Inquisitor—an agent of Imperial justice, think James Bond meets Judge Dredd—and his crew of oddballs as they investigate cults and conspiracies across the Imperium.
Leave the desperate battles between the Ultramarines and the endless Tyranids hordes to the videogames, yeah?
The cast is (mostly) human, and there’s lots of human-scale action, intrigue, and mystery—the kind of stuff that can serve as the meat of a streaming show without breaking the bank. But it builds up to a few key moments that are truly huge in scale—save up the budget for a couple of those per season and that can sell the feel of the Warhammer universe without having to over-indulge in it. And honestly, they’re just great books.
Similarly a story set in the mega-city of Necromunda could work, following its weird and wonderful gang wars like a cyberpunk Peaky Blinders. Or they could use the city of Varangantua—the setting of the Warhammer Crime series of novels, which tell noir-inspired detective stories using the dystopian Imperium as their backdrop.
Leave the desperate battles between the Ultramarines and the endless Tyranids hordes to the videogames, yeah?
Make it weird… but not too weird
There’s no getting away from it—Warhammer is odd. Between the cockney space orcs, the dominatrix battle nuns, and the power-armoured viking werewolves, it’s a brand of sci-fi fantasy that’s closer to heavy metal album covers and paintings airbrushed onto the sides of vans than it is Star Wars or the MCU.
That’s a tricky sell, and there’s a lot of stuff in there that feels natural to long-time fans that’s very jarring or even risible to outsiders. Much less weird franchises have struggled to justify their idiosyncrasies to mainstream audiences—back in 2016, the Warcraft movie had as hard a time getting viewers to accept its giant shoulder pads as it did its dimension-spanning human-orc war.
On the other hand, it’s that same weirdness that makes Warhammer unique. In a media landscape bursting with sci-fi and fantasy properties, it’s all the accumulated quirks of 40 years of development that could help it stand out from the rest.
The key, I think, is atmosphere. If you can find a strong and consistent look and feel, people are willing to go with the flow of a universe they don’t quite understand yet. The Dune movies are the perfect template for that (and not just because Warhammer 40,000 is basically a giant Dune fanfic).
At a time when normal people are having earnest conversations about the Sardaukar and Navigators, anything’s possible.
The world-building of Dune is bizarre and incredibly dense, but the movies have such a strong sense of place and such a clear and consistent tone that they drew people in regardless. At a time when normal people are having earnest conversations about the Sardaukar and Navigators, anything’s possible.
But, as with the scale issue, restraint will be key. An Imperium-set story will give time for some of the more low-key strangeness to sink in—y’know, the cyborg zombie servants, cathedral spaceships, corpse emperor, that sort of thing—while you keep the space elf wizards and 10,000 year old demon-worshipping super soldiers back in the wings to unleash a few seasons/movies in.
Embrace the humour
Of all the obstacles in making a good Warhammer story, I think the hardest of all is the humour. That doesn’t mean slapstick and MCU-style quips—what’s funny about Warhammer is the absurdity.
Everything is so grim and so enormous and so overwrought that it becomes as funny as it is cool. And that has to be leaned into. Where Warhammer videogames adaptations often fail is in their complete self-seriousness. Try to present this ludicrous setting with a completely straight face and you only make it seem pompous and stupid.
Worse, it can even stray into being offensive. The politics of the Imperium, where most of our likely protagonists hail from, are absolutely repulsive. Fail to convey that they’re satirical, and it can all start to feel like a lunatic’s darkest power fantasy.
The humour of the setting provides a touch of self-awareness. It says to the audience: “This is all a bit silly, isn’t it? But it’s kinda badass too, huh?”. It grants permission to enjoy the setting’s wild excess without feeling like you have to take it all seriously.
It’s a subtle art, but done well it’s a joy. Space Marine 2, a game that on the surface would seem in danger of falling into the self-serious camp, is full of wonderful touches of absurdity—I’m particularly fond of a tense sequence where Titus has to go through a totally unnecessary automated religious ritual in the middle of a warzone just to log into a computer.
Similarly charming are the squabbling tech-priests of strategy game Mechanicus, whose brain implants let them manually adjust their emotional responses during heated arguments. Or the cheerfully mad Rejects of Darktide, who chastise each other for perceived lapses of faith as they head into their 10th suicide mission of the day.
The core satirical theme of the Imperium is how self-defeating it is.
The Imperium itself is the perfect setting for getting that across cleanly to new audiences. It’s a society that’s still defined by real human desires and fears that we can relate to, but amplified to insanity. A film or TV show could draw inspiration from the bureaucratic nightmare of the movie Brazil, the brutal bluntness of Judge Dredd, or countless other dystopian satires.
The core satirical theme of the Imperium is how self-defeating it is. At every turn, its labyrinthine rules and superstitions make getting anything done arduous, it creates new enemies and crises for itself at every turn, and it constantly undermines the needs and well-being of the countless humans who keep it running. That’s a very familiar satire—and a good source of conflict and difficulty for any story about investigating crime and corruption on hive city streets.
There you go—follow those three rules, and a successful cinematic universe is almost guaranteed! Well, assuming you’ve also got good writers, directors, actors, SFX teams, costume designers, producers… but that’s the easy stuff right?