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.
What form the prospective films and TV series might take is still ephemeral: fans have speculated whether we’ll see Cavill as a captain of the Space Marines, as one of the Primarchs in an adaptation of the epic Horus Heresy books, or with a totally new story involving one of the more human-like (and cheaper to film) Warhammer 40k factions.
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”.
There’s no information on how smoothly those discussions are proceeding. Amazon will want to reserve as much creative freedom as possible to manage budgets and accommodate its production processes. Elsewhere in its financial report, Games Workshop describes “IP protection” as a key strategic risk for the business that is “regularly reviewed by the board.”
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 it the option “to license equivalent rights in the Warhammer Fantasy universe following the release of the initial Warhammer 40,000 production”.
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Source: Wargamer
