Games Workshop and Amazon have until December to agree creative guidelines or deal is off, the firm’s latest financial report reveals.

The Warhammer 40k film and TV series deal between Games Workshop and Amazon may fall apart this year, unless the two teams can “mutually” agree “creative guidelines” by December 2024. That’s according to new information revealed in Games Workshop’s annual financial report, published on Tuesday.

Games Workshop granted “exclusive rights to Amazon in relation to films and television series set within the Warhammer 40,000 universe” in an agreement announced in December 2023. Celebrity champion of Warhammer 40k Henry Cavill is attached to the project, both as an executive producer, and prospective star.

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According to Games Workshop’s most recent annual report, it and Amazon Content Services LLC are spending the 12 months from December 2023 to December 2024 “working together” to “agree creative guidelines for the films and television series to be developed by Amazon”. The agreement between the firms “will only proceed if the creative guidelines are mutually agreed”.

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The report states: “Failure to protect our IP may erode our competitive advantage and/or undermine our reputation, which will negatively impact our financial performance”. This refers both to the risk from unlicensed use of GW’s properties, and to licensed use that distorts or diminishes the brand.

The deal with Amazon also gives if the option “to license equivalent rights in the Warhammer Fantasy universe following the release of the initial Warhammer 40,000 production”.

  • juice702@lemmy.world
    12·
    3 months ago

    Poor Henry. Dude gets to work on projects he loves only for them to get squandered. Was looking forward to this so hoping it works out.

    • Geek_King@lemmy.world
      7·
      3 months ago

      Man, I would have loved to see Henry Cavill as Eisenhorn! Plus, Eisenhorn would be a good starting point to get the uninitiated into the WH40k universe as it feels more approachable then stories about Space Marines.

      • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝@feddit.ukOPMEnglish
        5·
        3 months ago

        Plus, Eisenhorn would be a good starting point to get the uninitiated into the WH40k universe as it feels more approachable then stories about Space Marines.

        Exactly. Space Marines are (or should be) terrifying posthuman killing machines as anyone who has stood next to someone cosplaying one will know and as the “Guardsman” short shows.

        So you really need an entry level character who people can identify with who allows you to dripfeed in the lore. Eisenhorn is perfect and would work well for Cavill, with a bit of a Witcher feel for Cavillaholics not familiar with WH40k. Others would be Kal Jerico to introduce Necromunda (which could be a whole self-contained series) or Gaunt’s Ghosts for some military sci-fi.

        So tonnes of potential and GW clearly don’t want to mess this up because, if it works, it could roll on for years if Amazon release a couple of watered-down films that go nowhere then they’ll struggle to find a future partner until the stink wears off.

        • thesmokingman@programming.dev
          4·
          3 months ago

          Exactly. Space Marines are (or should be) terrifying posthuman killing machines as anyone who has stood next to someone cosplaying one will know and as the “[Guardsman](https://youtu.be/6bgi5STRe8E)” short shows.

          You can show this from the perspective of the Space Marines just as easily as from the perspective of the humans around them. Lore-based Marines are just as human as other humans from a dramatic perspective. GW has never been consistent with anything regarding their emotions. I’ve been highlighting passages about that as I read Horus Heresy and it literally changes book to book (not even author to author or legion to legion; book to book). Fear is something the Astartes feel and the excessiveness of the Emperor’s Children highlights all of them can feel other things.

          It’s really just in the framing. Books written from the perspective of the Astartes frame them as big human that kill. Books written from the perspective of, say, the Inquisition, frame them as robots that kill usually because the humans are too afraid to bond.