On the old Black Library forums they had a thread going for a very long time that discussed how a WH40K movie might work in practice. This ended up being a very long, rambling thread that never really went anywhere, but it was always fun to speculate about these things.

Personally, I think 40k has the potential to make a great movie. Or trilogy.

It’s an incredibly rich, detailed fictional universe that has already been worked out to a finer and more internally consistent pitch than even the Star Wars or Star Trek universes. It is stacked full of conflicts, motivations, colour and themes. It has a unique “look” that has been honed by dozens of fine artists over 25 years.

When you consider how lacking in genuinely innovative ideas Hollywood appears to be (remakes of Clash of the Titans, Tron, Karate Kid etc in the works), it’s clear that there is certainly room for a big budget movie set in the 40k universe.

Of course, it could also be a total disaster: I’m thinking of the dungeons and dragons movies here.

I’m aware that there have been fan movies in the past, and also that there is a CGI Ultramarines movie coming up soon. I must admit I’m not optimistic about that at all, even though it’s being scripted by Dan Abnett.

Putting that aside, let’s imagine you were suddenly given an Avatar-sized budget to put whatever you wanted on the screen. How would YOU would go about making a 40k movie?

How would you write it? Who would you cast? What xeno races/human factions would you feature in it? How would you portray the Imperium? Heroic? Totalitarian? Glorious? Failing? How should such a movie be structured? Who would the protagonists be? Who would the villains be?

Any thoughts anyone?

An Avatar sized budget? Time to license the Eisenhorn trilogy, have Abnett write up a screenplay for each book and make a trilogy. Film them all pretty much at the same time, like Jackson did with Lord of the Rings and have a day. I think it would be possible to do the series justice with approximately $260-310 million to poor into it all.

Now the question would be... Who to cast?

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

I agree, the Eisenhorn trilogy would be a great idea. The real trouble I see about making a 40k movie is introducing the setting to audiences. That's a reason that I like Eisenhorn for the job. It introduces the Inquisition and the Imperium somewhat and that's good. Once a viewing audience got a look at the depth of the setting I think they would be interested as long as that introduction to 40k wasn't too corny.

As far as casting, I really can't say. I know very little about most actors these days

Just going to this here.

http://ultramarinesthemovie.com/

Well, when you're talking an introduction story to Warhammer 40k, your only choice is to go classic. Touch the main core that everyone involved in the hobby would be familiar with. Imperials vs Chaos. Then, you need to pick a story in a setting that movie audiences can recognize or relate to even if they're not familiar with the incredible amount of lore. Relatable characters would be prefer too. As such, the story would need to be centered around the Inquisition or the Imperial guard. More than likely it would be the Imperial Guard, with perhaps parts in the story for the Inquisiton and perhaps even space marines. Then all you need to do is tell a story about the Imperial Guard vs some Chaos force, probably in a developing world with a level of technology associated with the cyberpunk genre, again so non-fans can relate. I think with those guidelines, you'd have the perfect scenario for an introductory movie.

If you ask me though, Warhammer 40,000 is too big for just one movie, or even a trilogy. I think either a mini-series, or a full weekly hour-long television series would be in order. If it's the prior, you could probably have a different story addressing a different set of elements in the 40k universe for each episode. If it was the ladder, then you'd need to center the story around relatable central characters, which once again means Inquisition or Imperial Guard. However, with the span of time in which to explain things that a television series grants you, the producers could probably get away with Space Marines as well.

Copied from my response in another thread: new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp