Watching the screen versions of different comics and games, you ask yourself the question - why doesn't anyone even think about how to film our beloved Warhammer? Not matter, Fantasy, or 40K. Today we will try to answer the question of why we will never see the official film in the Warhammer universe.
It would seem that the problem lies in copyright issues. However, Games Workshop willingly sells the rights to anyone, which leads to dozens of games, most of which have very dubious quality. While Fantasy Battles universe is still relatively lucky with it, then there wasn’t anything remarkable in Warhammer 40K since Dawn of War 2 (some believe that since1)
Problems lie in a little different field. Ironically, Warhammer has ... not enough fans. Don't misunderstand, there are quite a lot of them. But if to compare with the same Star Wars, or even Warcraft ... Our hobby is still small, and most of the potential viewers most likely have only a distant idea about this universe. And this is not enough to lure them to the cinema.
But you need to lure them Because the film about Warhammer is an expensive pleasure. Imagine, what special effects the image of, for example, battle of Isstvaan requires. A Warhammer movie without epic battles is unlikely to please the fans. In addition, such a film is doomed to have a high age rating. It is unlikely that all that blood and gore will be allowed to show children under 16. And this limits already small audience.
So, here is the main reason - such an expensive film simply won’t pay off. Remember the recent example of Warcraft, which, in essence, was not bad, but did not bring much profit to the creators. And consider the fact that much more people know about this universe than about Warhammer.
There are other problems that could be solved if there wasn’t the first one. For example - what should this movie talk about? The Warhammer universe is huge, and it’s very difficult to choose a piece of its history that would be able to attract fans of all races and editions. Perhaps such events could be the Horus Heresy in 40 (more precisely, 30)K, the End of Times in Fantasy Battles and the War for the Realmgates in Age of Sigmar. Although each of them is quite large and can be presented as a full-fledged trilogy.
Partly, the vacuum in the Warhammer movie universe is filled with animated films. Mostly – fan made. And this imposes restrictions on the budget. In addition, the project is not always brought to the end. Remember the Lord Inquisitor, which after many years of development was abandoned, as soon as a more worthwhile project was offered to its creator.
In general, everything is pretty bleak. The only hope to see Warhammer on the big screen is to wait until Games Workshop themselves decide to create an animated film, and allocate enough money and, most importantly, attention. to it. Not as they did with Ultramarines. It is useless to hope for a live-action movie.