Henry Cavill’s seemingly innocuous image displaying his leg harm sustained whereas coaching for the Highlander reboot has despatched Warhammer 40,000 followers right into a frenzy after hypothesis the previous Superman actor’s social media put up comprises three(!) separate nods to his upcoming — and tremendous secret — Amazon challenge.
Henry Cavill’s Warhammer 40,000 Cinematic Universe, the results of a deal struck between Video games Workshop and Amazon for Prime Video films and TV reveals based mostly on the well-known grimdark setting, is shrouded in thriller. Whereas it’s vastly thrilling for followers, particularly given Cavill’s well-documented love of Warhammer 40,000, we have no idea which character he’s set to play, and even which story the preliminary challenge will inform. We don’t even know which period of Warhammer, particularly, we are able to anticipate to see in stay motion kind.
Cavill has chosen his phrases rigorously at any time when he’s requested about Warhammer 40,000 in interviews. In June, Cavill touched on the “complexity” and “trickiness” of adapting the Warhammer 40,000 IP. However, he insisted, he was loving the problem.
Bringing Warhammer to life “is a dream come true,” Cavill mentioned, “but it surely’s completely different from what I’ve finished earlier than, within the sense I have not had my hand on the tiller of issues earlier than. It is fantastic doing that. It’s a difficult IP, and a really complicated IP, and that is what I really like about it. The challenges that include placing this on the web page in a means that’s doing justice to that complexity, that trickiness, and that nuance, is a problem I am having fun with enormously.”
However may Cavill’s social media put up trace at what to anticipate from his Warhammer 40,000 Cinematic Universe? Some followers assume so.
The obvious tease right here is within the second image, which reveals books for the Horus Heresy tabletop recreation strewn about on Cavill’s desk. For the uninitiated, the Horus Heresy is the Area Marine civil struggle that befell 10,000 years earlier than the present Warhammer 40,000 setting. It’s the basis of 40K’s grimdark universe, and divulges how the carrion Emperor ended up on the Golden Throne.
If this picture is certainly a tease for an adaptation of the Horus Heresy, it might be a major endeavor for Amazon. The galaxy-spanning struggle was epic in scale, concerned planet-cracking battles, monumental tremendous troopers, and all kinds of mind-bending house magic. Delivering the Horus Heresy as a TV present, whereas thrilling, could be a vastly costly proposition if finished on the scale recommended by the Black Library books. We’re speaking The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Energy manufacturing values right here, even perhaps higher.
However the Horus Heresy isn’t the one tease in Cavill’s picture. Squint on the first image, the one with Cavill’s rugged face and his canine, and also you’ll see within the background, simply above his head, the Warhammer 40,000: Leviathan field set sat on a shelf.
That is the present setting for Warhammer 40,000, which revolves across the Ultramarines chapter of Area Marines defending the Imperium towards the terrifying Tyranid risk. It additionally simply occurs to be the premise of the vastly profitable Area Marine 2, which launched to huge gross sales this time final yr.
May this be a enjoyable Cavill tease for his Amazon present? Maybe it’s set to adapt The First Tyrannic Struggle, throughout which the Imperium makes first contact with the Tyranid race and all hell breaks free?
However there’s extra! Cavill posted his pics alongside a poem, Invictus by William Ernest Henley. Invictus, you say? Properly, he’s solely one of the vital well-known Ultramarines there ever was, and a hero within the struggle towards the… Tyranids.
Certainly, Saul Invictus (now deceased within the official timeline) was the Captain of the Ultramarines Area Marine Chapter’s elite 1st Firm. He was killed defending his chapter homeworld of Macragge by the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Behemoth throughout the First Tyrannic Struggle.
Let’s go over that final a part of the poem:
It issues not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I’m the grasp of my destiny,
I’m the captain of my soul.
Is Cavill set to play Captain Invictus in an adaptation of the First Tyrannic Struggle? Some Warhammer 40,000 followers assume so, merely because of the poem lining up with the Leviathan field set.
In fact, all of the Warhammer ins and outs in Cavill’s footage could be harmless window dressing and imply completely nothing. And it is price noting one character who’s typically talked about by followers as a fantastic match for Cavill — Eisenhorn, from Black Library writer Dan Abnett’s saga of the identical identify — isn’t teased right here. Not less than, not that we are able to see. An adaptation of Abnett’s much-loved Eisenhorn collection would maybe be a extra lifelike proposition for Amazon, not least as a result of its most important characters (Gregor Eisenhorn and Gideon Ravenor) are human inquisitors, not hulking Area Marines, and their story is extra grounded.
In July, Video games Workshop mentioned in a monetary report that followers shouldn’t anticipate any important information on the Amazon work any time quickly — and that it might be “a number of years” earlier than something comes of it.
“On 10 December 2024 we introduced the conclusions of our negotiations with Amazon for the variation of Video games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 universe into movies and tv collection, along with related merchandising rights,” Video games Workshop mentioned.
“The challenge continues according to our contractual settlement with Amazon. This similar contract prohibits us from sharing any particular particulars or industrial phrases.
“We now have nice companions who proceed to show their dedication to current Warhammer authentically and on the scope and scale befitting our fantastical setting. It is a long-term partnership with Amazon and there received’t be any important information within the quick time period — this stuff take a number of years to convey to market.”
So we’re left with scraps to mull over, reminiscent of latest feedback from Dan Abnett about NDAs and upcoming books.
Within the meantime, Video games Workshop pointed to the well-received Warhammer 40,000 episode on Amazon Prime’s animation present Secret Stage, which it described as “a taster of Warhammer IP in digital kind on the small display screen.”
Wesley is Director, Information at IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You’ll be able to attain Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].