Inquisitor Eisenhorn To Become A TV Star In New Show Pitch
July 18, 2019 by brennon
Games Workshop announced yesterday that Big Light Productions are going to be working with them to bring a Warhammer 40,000 TV show to your screens featuring everyone's favourite rogue Inquisitor, Eisenhorn.
Following one of the Inquisitors, and particularly this one, seems to make a lot of sense. Inquisitors deal with not just brutal bloody clashes against daemons and the like but also plenty of intrigue and skullduggery behind the scenes. This should make for an interesting mix of both action and investigation as the story unfolds. Plus, they have a wealth of content to draw on from the existing lore.
Dan Abnett said...
“Gregor Eisenhorn is a relentless force in the Dark Future of the Warhammer universe: a destroyer of daemons and a purger of heretics, implacable, powerful and dedicated. But the appeal to me, from the moment I started writing him, was his complexity. He is not the simple, ruthless hero he appears to be. His battle with the Warp leads him into dark places and forces him to question his duty, his understanding of the Imperium, and his own identity. With Eisenhorn, it’s not just the adventures, and they are certainly vivid: it’s the journey he takes to the very limits of what he is and what it means to be loyal.”
It should also lay down a lot of the groundwork for other aspects of the Imperium to come to life on the screen too. Getting to know the workings of the Imperium will be great for newcomers to the franchise and then you can throw some Space Marines at them later on down the line!
Frank Spotnitz, who was involved with Man In The High Castle and X-Files told us his thoughts too...
“We are delighted to collaborate with Games Workshop to develop the beloved visionary world of Warhammer 40,000 into a TV series. Warhammer 40,000 is steeped in rich and complex lore, with a myriad of traditions and stories that have accumulated over time in this thrilling and complex world, making it one of the most exciting properties to adapt for television audiences and the franchise’s loyal global fanbase. There is nothing else like it on television, and we are incredibly excited to tap into our own experience creating imaginative, complex and compelling worlds to bring this incredible saga to the screen.”
I have always thought that Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer/Age Of Sigmar would work best in an animated context. I think that would be where you'd be able to portray the over-the-top action that you witness on the battlefield and in the dark corners of the Imperium.
However, if you're going with real-life actors then I think keeping things to this Inquisitorial level makes a lot of sense. It means they won't end up blowing their budget on the first big battle scene!
So, what do you make of the idea?
"This should make for an interesting mix of both action and investigation as the story unfolds..."
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Now we just have to wait if they do a really grim dark version or if it gets “kid friendly”-fied.
I’m sure with it being done by a dude behind Man In The High Castle and X-Files it’s going to be more towards the mature side of things. Plus, with GW involved I’m sure they will watch this very carefully at every stage.
We have a saying for when we wish for the best but fear for the worst. “Dein Wort in Gottes Ohr”. Translates to something like “may your words reach the ears of god”. And then there is the question of: where will it air? Netflix? Amazon Prime? Or TV only?
Extra question: will it be “free” to watch on some services or a VoD with pay per episode?
My guess would be somewhere like Amazon Prime. If the creator has links with MITHC then that was where the show popped up in VoD form. So, most likely there via paid subscription.
If it’s included in prime I would watch it but it would have to be really good to get me to pay extra. Heck, even Good Omens was included in Prime and that was awesome!
Ive always said the eisenhorn books would make for a great multi season show, partially because its the probably the most “human” of the big 40k series, so most accessible, it isnt about space marines, i think there is one in the entire lot of it and that really sells the eliteness and unlikelyness of ever coming into contact with one of them in the imperium (its a chaos one to boot so no scope for ultramarines to photobomb it). It also doesnt get bogged down in lore to much, you can enjoy the book knowing nothing of 40k, at… Read more »
Please, please get this right! In the days where epic fantasy can be a huge hit, there’s never been a better time to put 40k on TV.
The first series of The Man in the High Castle was excellent, not watched the rest of it yet though.
They really need to get Peachy and Duncan as recurring extras 🙂
Watch them, they’re good 😉
That does seem interesting to me as some one I haven’t read any of Eisenhorn novels but I really hope that they don’t mess this up like they did with that dreadfully bad Ultramarines CGI movie.
Eisenhorn is great. Purtian fals to Radicalism. He’s a very flawed character with a very clear moral structure and personality surrounded people who also have very clear moral and personal values.
He’s also a total beast. He has no facial expressions because he kept smiling while being tortured until a massive Inqusitorial Task Force saves him in an epic battle.
He outsmarts a Daemon and is outsmarted by that daemon repeatedly, he’s a pretty tragic figure.
This sounds good I’m thinking a darker bloodyer type version of the legends of tomorrow especially with Constantine in it at the moment @brennon ???
Would that be ‘The Lord Inquisitor’ Eisenhorn perchance? Answers on a postcard.
Interesting that that the film was nearly finished then nothing.?
@warzan anyone! have you heard anything.
If you go to Warpgazer’s YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/Warpgazer he explains in a couple of videos that he’s decided to halt The Lord Inquisitor, for now at least, and put his time into something he has copyright over. I did hear a rumour a little while ago that another YouTuber and Warhammer 40000 fan film maker, Richard Boylan ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTaGjGmcHYD2fqukCIVfjvQ/videos ), had now been hired by Games Workshop to make such things. I suppose it’s possible that if this is true he’s not the only one.
Thanks for the links I loved the helsreach film its a shame its finished the film was great as each part came out.
I’m hoping this will do really well, if GW maintain decent control it will probably end up like a more esoteric sort of Altered Carbon – and they had better not soft ball it to let children watch it, they need to keep it grimdark for it to work
– You want to focus on the Inquisition or a Rogue Trader because they have the autonomy to act, they can think through problems and make decisions and they can interact with the whole breadth of the setting. An inquisitor can work with a huge variety of allies, and even do some political maneuvering against other inquisitors (since their job allows that they be semi-heretical anyway). – Marines are giant monsters that are hard to sympathize with. While they are powerful, they have relatively little autonomy as part of a strictly structured army (they seldom choose what to do- which… Read more »
They’ve managed to make an interesting series out of freakin’ Clone Troopers in Star Wars.
So why couldn’t someone do the same for Spacemarines ?
Nothing is ever as perfect as the propaganda material says.
I think the bigger issue is that they are superhumans and thus would have to face serious threats from day 1 just to give them something to worry about.
I didn’t keep watching the Clone Troopers series through a whole episode, and I never hear about it (I just hear about the Clone Wars stuff featuring the Jedi). Did it get good or something? You’re right that ramping the power dial up to eleven on the first day would be way too much, but I’m not sure that makes any sense anyway. Actually, I wonder if they’d go with the game marines (where they’re worth about three guardesmen) or book marines (where they can survive being stepped on by titans and easily dispatch a thousand orks in close combat).… Read more »
It’s not the ramping up of power, but the lack of ‘low end’ problems that would challenge them.
You’d probably get a better series by looking at spacemarine recruitment instead. That’s were the drama is likely to be.
If you want to do Marines you pretty much have to go back to 30K when they did hang out in robes and played chess with humans. 30K Books are much better than 40K books in my opinion and if you want to see marines on the TV I would strongly recommend the 30K Series. Argel Tal has more personality than all the 40K Marines combined. What’s Calgar’s motivation? He’d got Daddy issues because Guilliman returned. And then what? A lot of 40K Marines seem to be pretty 2D. I mean how epic would Istvaan III and V be on… Read more »
I think you’re right. That’s probably because the setting is so dynamic during the Horus Heresy (even though we all know how it ends). Half of the marines are turning against the Emperor and their brother marines. They have a wide variety of motivations, circumstances and beliefs. Whichever side they choose, they have their reasons and their reasons to doubt and suspect one another. They know that suspecting one another could tear the defenders of the Imperium apart, but trust is a virtue only until it isn’t. Plus, 30k marines have a kind of mythic portrayal- great deeds accompanied by… Read more »
Space Marines are difficult to make as sympathetic characters. They’re giant sexless overgrown children who think of little but service and glory. ADB manages it, other authors do less consistently.
Yes think the film Soldier but even less human?
I don’t know, i’m quite enjoying the fan film ‘Astartes’. There’s not much of it so far, but i think it could turn out to be the best of the Warhammer 40000 fan films thus far, as it were.
Maybe a dump question. Has GW not last year announced an animated series about the blood angels? I have never heard anything about it after the announcment. I hope this will not sink into oblivion as fast at that.
There have been a number of 40k film and television projects over the years that GW has announced.
GW are a bit trigger happy to tell us about these projects way before they’re certain to happen.
hope not a cgi construct.
As long as it’s not another Ultramarines movie we should be fine! 😀
The blood andgel series is being done by the same guy who did helsreach GW hired because of it
Wait- that doesn’t sound right. I think you mean that GW licensed him because of it (since GW isn’t a film production studio).
It probably should be noted that Hollywood folks buy a LOT of adaptation rights to things that ultimately aren’t made.
From what I see here, the changes are probably 10-1 against Eisenhorne becoming a TV show at this time.
Pretty damn perfect fit for the modern “dark fantasy” TV shows we’re seeing, and could easily fill the hole GoT fans will be needing filled, perhaps with less (avoiding cheap pun) of the nudey bits. Enough different from anything else to allow an easy pitch, but nothing is confirmed. It’s still just getting a “treatment”. As far as these things go it still needs a network to agree it’d be awesome and sign a fast check to get cameras rolling. The good news is that it’s a great choice for live action scifi – studio sets, CGI locations, mostly human… Read more »
So do we know if it will be set in the time of young Eisenhorn? I assume with this picture we’re expecting young Eisenhorn, which I think is a shame. I’d like to see him crossing paths with Covenant and Witch Hunter Tyrus. Although I do remember him killing a Tyrus analogue in Malleus.