Henry Cavill: Which Warhammer 40k show is he actually making?

Writers Note: The following came out of a two-beer conversation with Girdy, which in his inimitable fashion he suggested I write up as Content for Geek Native. I swear that boy cannot just be sometimes.

Hi there, very infrequent contributor here writing up my rambling thoughts on the likely subject matter of the much-feted Amazon TV Warhammer 40k show with Geek God with the Greek God Bod Henry Cavill. 

My credentials, such as they are is I was a Warhammer fan in the early-to-mid 90s who rediscovered his love of the hobby in 2021 during Lockdown thanks to a Horus Heresy humble bundle and a roleplaying buddy who wouldn’t shut up about If The Emperor Had A Text To Speech. I mainly play Kill Team, although I’ve collected around 4-5000 points of Death Guard and around 1500 of Space Marines (painted as Silver Skulls). My Steam account is full of Warhammer games and my Audible and Kindle libraries are stuffed with 40k novelizations. I am not a master of Warhammer Lore but I consider myself a keen student.

So anyway, my ideas, none of which will be shocking to fellow 40k nerds reading this:

1. Eisenhorn. A popular series by Dan Abnett and one of the few 40k series I read at a time when I didn’t consider myself a Warhammer fan. The title character, Gregor Eisenhorn, is an Inquisitor. Essentially, imagine James Bond. Then give him practically unlimited authority on a galactic scale, a spaceship crewed by fanatically loyal and highly trained operatives and oh yes, a heaping helping of psychic powers (which in the Warhammer 40k universe are basically space magic). Depictions of Eisenhorn make him a good match for Cavill, and the book series is a good human-level primer into the 40k universe, full of political intrigue, Lovecraftian horror and cool sci-fi espionage. There’s even a few Space Marines around so you can be introduced to the poster boys of the setting.
   
   If they wanted to do a good live action introduction to the setting using an existing story, Eisenhorn would make the most sense. This feels like the most likely and useful story to tell in Live Action.

2. The Horus Heresy. Christianity has the Bible, The Lord of the Rings has the Silmarillion, and 40k nerds have the Horus Heresy. It is fundamentally the creation myth of the setting. Set ten thousand years before the “current” era, it tells how the god-like Emperor of Mankind was betrayed by his favored “son” Horus and eight of his brothers, plunging the galaxy into a nigh-apocalyptic civil war which culminated in the Siege of Terra. There has been, to date, 60 novels, multiple game sourcebooks and countless short stories and audio plays set during this time. There’s almost too much to draw on here, and that’s why I think it would be nigh impossible to adapt as a live action show, even focussing on the main threads. 
   
   There’s also no consistent POV character throughout the key events that strikes me as particularly Cavill-esque, unless they decide to cave to his inner fanboy and let him play The Emperor, which would be a mistake. In the Horus Heresy the Emperor is essentially so far beyond humanity he is unknowable to all but a few of his most trusted and powerful allies. Think Lovecraftian abomination but vaguely on our side.

3. Something else. Yeah I’m copping out at two, sue me. For existing 40k stories, it has to be one of those two. Whilst I would love to see Cavill bring some of his Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare energy to Caiphas Cain I don’t see it happening. Maybe we’ll get him as a Custodes (the army he collects) but given they’re about eight foot tall I’d expect a lot of Hobbit-esque camera trickery involved in bringing that to life. Maybe we’ll see him as a different type of Imperial Agent (a Rogue Trader maybe?) without a defined story.

Whatever they pick, the fact that they’re taking their time in development is a positive to me. I would much rather it’s done right than done soon. 

Was this fun? Useful? Retreading the same empty speculation as every other rumour site on the internet? Would you like to know more about the Warhammer 40k setting and haven’t managed to find the hundreds of lore videos online? If so let me know and Girdy might be able to twist my arm into writing more stuff here.

Creative Commons: Legio IV on the march by Joazzz2.