Henry Cavill will get to star in a TV series based on his favorite game: Warhammer 40,000. The show is being produced by Amazon, although no other members of the cast or crew have been announced yet.
Warhammer is far too complex to explain here, but put simply it's a nerdy game played with hundreds of dice, loads of numbers and dozens of wildly expensive models. And Henry Cavill loves it. To be precise, he loves Warhammer Fantasy, now called Sigmar (kinda). But whereas Warhammer Fantasy is set in a world clearly inspired by medieval Europe, Warhammer 40,000 is set in the 41st millennium, hence the name.
In the grim darkness of the 41st millennium there is only war. All mankind is under the authoritarian regime of the Imperium, and human culture has been reduced to pure militarism. But against mankind stand various Xenos races like the Tau, the Tryanids, the Necrons, and countless others. This is the Warhammer we'll be seeing in the new show.
Amazon's New Warhammer 40k Show
Amazon are finalizing a deal with Games Workshop for the rights to produce a show set in the 40k universe starring Henry Cavill. There were other competitors vying for the rights but Amazon, quite predictably, was able to offer a better deal. And before you go asking about release dates and plot details, none of that is known at this point and the project is still years away from even being filmed.
If we had to guess, based on all the cheesy Warhammer novels we've wasted our time reading, we would assume that the show is going to focus on a small detachment of Space Marines (mankind's super-soldiers). It would be a canny use of their budget to focus on a smaller group of Space Marines who have become separated from the rest of their battalion, or who were sent on a mission alone, and a ton of the novels use that setup.
Henry Cavill will almost certainly be one of these Space Marines, who are as close a thing to heroes as you're going to find in the 40k universe. Although, he is also one of the few actors working today who could pull off playing a Primarch (basically Space Marine generals), so maybe they'll take that approach.
We're just happy the actor was able to leave Netflix's Witcher show with his reputation intact. That shitshow could have cost him a lot, but clearly it hasn't. And what a dream job for Cavill, who has no doubt spent hours upon hours painting a few Space Marines himself.
Will the TV show be any good? Based on Amazon's recent LotR: Rings of Power show we're certainly feeling optimistic. As we said in our review of RoP, they put the ginormous budget to good use and were able to convey the world of Middle Earth compellingly, and that's going to be half the battle with a 40k show. They also won't be facing the same complicated lore problems as RoP did, but this time around Amazon should look for more seasoned showrunners.
If you want to learn a little more about the Warhammer universe before the show is released then you should begin with the first few books from the Horus Heresy series . But be prepared for some seriously edgy material (although obviously the show itself isn't going to show us anything on the level of Daemonculaba). And while you get reading, we'll keep an ear to the ground and keep you posted whenever we hear news regarding the show.
Cavill must feel glad to be leaving this shit show: