The Henry Cavill-led Warhammer 40,000 series might be cooked, but don’t lose hope just yet

After leaving Netflix’s The Witcher series behind, Henry Cavill set his sights on a big-screen reboot of Highlander and, more importantly, an Amazon-backed Warhammer 40,000 TV series that would mark the start of a (hopefully) long collaboration with Games Workshop. Now, however, we’re learning it all might not happen after all, but there’s still hope.

IGN first shared the news, which popped up during Games Workshop’s annual financial report. Long story short: The company’s very serious about either getting it right or not making it at all.

Back in December 2023, we learned Games Workshop had finally signed an agreement with Amazon to commence work on the tentative series and further universe-building, as it was keen on getting movies off the ground too. The fine print stated Games Workshop would only exclusively work with Amazon for 12 months, starting December 2023, “to agree creative guidelines for the films and television series to be developed by Amazon.” It appears such creative guidelines haven’t been figured out yet, so Amazon might not have exclusive rights to the IP after all if something hasn’t been worked out by December 2024.

No matter how passionate Cavill is about the potential project(s), Warhammer 40,000 is a difficult beast to tame, as Games Workshop is notoriously strict when it comes to its flagship sci-fi universe outside the realm of tabletop gaming. Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 creative director Oliver Hollis-Leick confirmed to me as much during a recent chat.

Mind you, most IP holders want to make sure collaborations and adaptations are done right, yet quite often we end up with half-baked projects that barely resemble the source material or don’t give it an enticing enough twist. Games Workshop, meanwhile, is extremely careful about the WH40K canon and how everything is represented elsewhere, which lands it closer to Disney and Lucasfilm’s handling of the Star Wars IP outside film and TV than something like Sonic the Hedgehog.

We’re pretty sure a WH40K series or movie will end up happening sooner rather than later, but we’re not counting on this specific approach to the long-running universe making the cut. Anyway, Space Marine 2 is looking fantastic, so we’ll just hype ourselves up about that instead.