Is a 40k movie becoming an inevitability?

[Psychosplodge]

I thought it was for cats and tubes?

[Mr Mystery]

Well that would be a pretty awkward example of said scene, yes.

For me, a story about an Inquisitor needs to be reverse Firefly - kick off with a proper movie to establish the galaxy, then pick up with an ongoing series, ideally on Netflix because binge watching.

[Erik Setzer]

So it's far from a risk free thing - but is it a risk worth taking?

Marvel's owned by Disney, who has a load of money and a movie production studio. DC has a load of money and rakes in a ridiculous amount each year. WoW, even if it was just 5 million subs, would be bringing in $75M per month, plus sales of expansions, in-game purchases (mounts, pets, some other cosmetic stuff), and that's before you add in Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm... and that's not even all of Blizzard's lineup, but let's not forget Blizzard is now connected to Activision, who make obscene amounts reskinning Call of Duty every year.

Point is, these are companies that pretty much make more in a month than GW does in a year. They've got the money to do this stuff, and the reach. Especially in places like the US, people are more likely to know what World of Warcraft is than Warhammer if they're not nerds.

It'd be fun, but given that a movie to do it justice would cost more to make than GW brings in during a year, I don't see it happening.

[Charistoph]

Show the necessary ruthlessness of The Imperium, and how utterly dystopian it is. Keep it small and focussed. If that film does well, you can increase the scale a bit in the next film (many props from the first can be reused etc).

You can do a lot with a single Inquisitor and their goons!

The hard part is bringing it across that as brutal as the Imperium is, the alternative is far, far worse.

Leave the Tau out of the equation till much later. But show Genestealer Cults that make Aliens seem like ants at a picnic. Chaos Marines and Daemons be mixture of all the devil-possession movies and Event Horizon combined. Orks that only want to brutally smash humanity in a way that would leave the Gorillas of Planet of the Apes jealous. Eldar that would either leave them as enslaved dogs or tortured playthings for their amusement far worse than any Vampire utopia.

Then after a few movies of that, bring in the Tau. They seem bright and shiny and hopeful. Then dash all the hopes with mass mind control operations and sterilization pograms that leave humanity a shell of a discriminated minority.

[Defenestratus]

It'd be fun, but given that a movie to do it justice would cost more to make than GW brings in during a year, I don't see it happening.

What does GW's bottom line have anything to do with the price of peanuts?

GW would license its IP (which isn't going to happen because they have draconian conditions) to a production company. Production company assumes cost of creating movie with licensed IP. GW gets licensing fee which may or may not consist of a percentage of revenue generated from ticket sales.

[Erik Setzer]

What does GW's bottom line have anything to do with the price of peanuts?

GW would license its IP (which isn't going to happen because they have draconian conditions) to a production company. Production company assumes cost of creating movie with licensed IP. GW gets licensing fee which may or may not consist of a percentage of revenue generated from ticket sales.

It's mainly a comparison tool... You're trying to make money off of something that's very niche, as opposed to things with widespread appeal. The company being licensed to do the movie would have to be risking a lot of money. If you have someone like Marvel, DC, or Activision-Blizzard, you know their properties aren't as niche. And it still can't be stressed enough that Marvel is part of Disney, who's been making movies for a long time, and the recent run of Marvel movies making loads of money is coming from a company who has their own studio and knows what they're doing, they're not licensing it out.

I'm not taking shots at GW here, just trying to point out that you can't say that they should be able to get a movie done just because much larger companies with wider appeal are able to do so.

We're in a niche hobby and G-Dub likes to be even more niche. That's not helping.

There's another thing to consider here: treatment of IP. Marvel's cinematic universe is different from the comics. The stuff Marvel hasn't gotten back has gone pretty far off the reservation in places (hello, latest Fantastic Four!), and they can't do much because the rights to do that were signed away before Disney took over. DC movies are similarly different from the comics. And Warcraft, as much as I'll go see it and probably enjoy it, is VERY different from the source material. These are changes made to suit a different audience. Now imagine Games Workshop signing on to let a studio and the writers and director create their own story and possibly change the look of iconic GW races or armies, or the story of nations. GW is extremely protective of their IP. How okay would they be with the kind of changes being made in Marvel and DC movies, and Warcraft?

Look at the damage done by the Fantastic Four movies... Marvel pretty much had to retire them from the comics because Fox destroyed them. Marvel does well when they're in charge, but Fox and Sony have shown what licensing your property out-of-house can lead to.

[Defenestratus]

None of the relative popularity stuff really matters truth be told. Hollywood greenlights a bunch of seemingly random stuff. There's enough scifi and fantasy themes embedded into the 40k universe that it would have enough to stand on its own.

As for the abuse of IP, I get it. However, if a movie comes out that isn't true to the original material (and lets be honest, with 40k it won't ever be) then oh well, no skin off my back. The hobby and the universe are GW has made them, not what Hollywood would remake it as.

At least to those of us that know it now.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

If you go with the inquisitor tv show idea - you could have genestealer cults, chaos cults, daemons, enslavers, xenos cults and minor xenos. Some of the minor aliens that wouldn't otherwise fit the wargame would be perfect for episodic tv too. You could save the "best" stuff for finales and longer stories (eg chaos marines) - theres less chance of it happening than there is of me making my own SF web series based around my beloved floating aliens (and I actually stand a small chance at doing that lol)

Animation might be a better medium and if it stayed true to the art styles in the codex books ect, could look pretty nice and stylised too.

[Erik Setzer]

As for the abuse of IP, I get it. However, if a movie comes out that isn't true to the original material (and lets be honest, with 40k it won't ever be) then oh well, no skin off my back.

We might be fine with it (though plenty of folks wouldn't be, as seen by some fan reactions to Warcraft or parts of Marvel and DC movies), but I'm not sure GW'd take kindly to people taking their IP in a direction they don't like. I'd imagine that's one of the key sticking points to them getting any kind of movie or anything done.

It'd be nice to see a movie, but I just don't see it happening.

[Cactus]

And as and extra the MIs Armour is much more powerful than either SM Power Armour or Tau Battlesuits, they carry Nuclear weapons for a start. It is much more similar in concept to Tau Battlesuits though.

I still imagined Space Marine armor (some with jump packs) rather than Tau. Plus, they came down in drop pods...