Warhammer wars: Henry Cavill takes on Amazon?

Yet another case study in the evolving structures of digital Hollywood

Before I hit the highway for almost two days — back across the High Plains toward our home base in the Southern Highlands — I have a rather strange confession to make.

I know next to nothing about a whole lot of the contents of this post. I mean, is this actually solid Rational Sheep material? Is there significant religious content in this case study?

Maybe, maybe not. I don’t think anyone believes that there is Christian content in this particular pop-culture franchise. There may even be strong doses of a modernized paganism along with a nasty caricature of high-church Christianity. That’s pretty common in fantasy gaming culture.

Thus, why am I writing about the ongoing efforts — with superstar actor Henry Cavill in the lead — to create Warhammer 40,000 movies and streaming content in mini-series?

To be blunt, my Millennial Generation children, who are nerd-adjacent (to say the least), assure me that the mysterious tensions that keep stalling this project may turn out to be yet another example of the trends I described in this post: “What is Job 1, when you run a pop super-franchise?”

What’s going on with the key Rational Sheep material linked to the power clashes between Warhammer fans, massive corporations and the principalities and powers of “woke” Hollywood? Previously, I said:

I’m talking about money, as well as matters of quality or even “art” of some kind. … Now, the big questions:

Is Job 1 to please the core fans that made your product a profitable franchise in the first place? Is it to be faithful to the source material for the franchise, whether we’re talking about classic books, comics, foundation films or whatever? Should managers be faithful to the “canon” of a franchise, to its core principles and worldview? …

Or is Job 1 finding a way to EXPAND the franchise into a new generation, reaching the “modern audiences” that allegedly represent the future? After all, the folks in the 18-40 demographic of a decade or more ago are not the anxious young ticket buyers of today.

Cavill is the kind of action-film megastar that the big moneychangers — Amazon in this case — need to attract legions of ticket buyers into theaters and onto digital-media platforms. And, in this case, the former Superman icon is also a high-profile Warhammer fanatic. He has made that very clear.

Consider this chunk of a recent Esquire feature: “Henry Cavill on Watches, ‘Warhammer,’ and Love Affair with Saint-Imier, Switzerland.” While talking about expensive watches for men:

Cavill couldn't help but notice a few similarities to a preexisting personal passion: Warhammer 40,000.

Cavill is a noted enthusiast of the tabletop strategy game, one of the most popular games in the world, and is currently executive-producing films and TV versions of the game for Amazon Studios.

Let’s keep reading:

Bringing Warhammer to life "is a dream come true," he explains, "but it's different from what I've done before, in the sense I haven't had my hand on the tiller of things before. It's wonderful doing that. It is a tricky IP, and a very complex IP, and that's what I love about it. The challenges that come with putting this on the page in a way that is doing justice to that complexity, that trickiness, and that nuance, is a challenge I'm enjoying enormously."

Why can’t this Warhammer 40,000 fanatic make the movies that he wants to make?

That is where the two Job 1 scenarios come into play, as Cavill tries to honor the worldview and characters from this game in products for theater screens.

This next material, from a Collider.com feature, is where I go over the edge into ignorance about this particular fan-cult. The headline asks: “Is 'Warhammer 40,000' Teasing What Henry Cavill's Long-Delayed Adaptation Will Be About?”

If you are, like me, the wrong generation of nerd to parse this stuff, I will urge you to simply look for the crucial term “lore.” I think the idea here is that Cavill, Amazon and a key writer may be wrestling over what parts of the decades of Warhammer “canon” will make it into the “lore” that defines a potential movie franchise.

Translate this:

Celebrated Warhammer 40,000 author Dan Abnett — the man behind Eisenhorn, Gaunt’s Ghosts, and key entries in The Horus Heresy — recently posted a friendly promo for an appearance at Broadside Games Show. Pretty standard stuff… until he casually dropped a bombshell about his long-delayed novel Pandaemonium, the third and final book in the Bequin series.

“For those who don’t know, it is not MY decision when Pandaemonium gets finished and published,” Abnett wrote. “For reasons an NDA prevents me from discussing, Bequin 3 — and some other things — are held up for a while.”

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war — and, apparently, corporate gag orders. Naturally, the fandom went into immediate meltdown, especially when you factor in a Reddit post from March that gives the NDA context. According to redditor Zigoia, who spoke with Abnett at a signing, the delay is “because of the potential lore impact” of the book. Games Workshop allegedly wants to finalize the lore for the Amazon series before greenlighting a novel that could contradict it. If true, that would make Pandaemonium the collateral damage of Cavill’s incoming live-action adaptation.

It appears that Cavill is a “canon” purist and doesn’t want this material altered to appeal to “modern audiences.” One example: Will all-male armies of super warriors stay all male? Will some of the material be softened to make it less offensive?

Will it be possible to turn Warhammer 40,000 into a date-night movie? A more gender-inclusive brand of epic?

Cavill really cares about the details of this.

Cavill, who’s not just starring in the project but also executive producing it, has spent over a year with Games Workshop “sifting through old texts” to find the right entry point. Could Eisenhorn — the inquisitor-centric saga written by Abnett himself — be the story they’ve landed on? If so, it would explain why Pandaemonium is under legal lock and key. The book’s predecessor, Penitent, ended with a massive lore twist. The third book could rewrite a huge chunk of canon — which Amazon and Cavill may now be adapting for the screen.

What happens if he decides to walk away from the project, while letting his fellow Warhammer nerds know WHY they lost the superman who wanted to carry the franchise?

Now, if you are part of the right tribe of nerds to help, please straighten me out in the comments section. Meanwhile, let’s see if Amazon remains loyal to Cavill.

Remember, what is Job 1?