Making TV is hard, and takes time. A lot of it, which is why since Warhammer makers Games Workshop and Amazon made it official late last year that they had agreed to a deal to make a new TV series set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe (with the help of Warhammer uber-nerd and occasional actor Henry Cavill), we’ve not heard anything since about the series. But that might change in the coming months if a show is going to happen at all: because there’s actually a time stipulation on the deal.
Today Games Workshop released its annual report for 2024 (via IGN), and offered a brief update on its ongoing partnership with Amazon. Turns out, no news is both good and potentially bad news. Good news: the process is still ongoing, and if Amazon actually makes a Warhammer 40,000, the current deal also could open up the streamer to the licensing rights for Games Workshop’s fantasy properties, presumably either Age of Sigmar or its predecessor, Warhammer Fantasy Battles. The potentially bad news? Amazon and Games Workshop don’t have much time left to actually agree on the show they want to make before their deal expires.
“Games Workshop and Amazon are working together for a period of 12 months, ending in December 2024, to agree creative guidelines for the films and television series to be developed by Amazon,” a section of the annual report related to licensing deals reads in part. “The agreement will only proceed if the creative guidelines are mutually agreed between Games Workshop and Amazon. We will update you accordingly.”
Basically, things are still happening, but not enough to actually say that a specific new show is happening. And there’s five more months for that to happen before the deal dissolves and Games Workshop can take its grimdark universe somewhere else.
This is a relatively common thing in making TV—something Games Workshop is already more than familiar with, considering it went through a similar process in 2019 with Spotnitz Productions. Back then, the company announced it was developing a TV series around the character of Gregor Eisenhorn, an Inquisitor in the Imperium of Man tasked with hunting down corrupting alien influences in human society. But after the deal was first announced, nothing ever came of it—and presumably, that deal expired before Games Workshop entered discussions with Amazon in late 2022.
The same could happen here, and we just hear nothing about Amazon’s plans for Warhammer, until a few years down the line Games Workshop announces that the license has gone elsewhere. Or we hear that a show is happening before the end of 2024, find out what flavor of Giant Man In Power Suit Henry Cavill might possibly play, and wait for it to enter production! Either way, 40K‘s TV future will be known by the end of 2024. Beyond that? Well, in the grim dark future, there is only war… and licensing agreements.
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