The rumors were wrong that Games Workshop and Henry Cavill are no longer making a Warhammer series with Amazon Studios.
The contracts between Amazon and Games Workshop are officially signed for both a new Warhammer 40k series and a movie championed by Henry Cavill himself.
However, there were rumors that pointed to Games Workshop and Henry Cavill no longer making a Warhammer series with Amazon, but as rumors tend to do, they turned out to be not 100% accurate. You can read more about that here.
Now that this project is official and the contracts are signed, it’s time for all parties involved to get to work. Here is the latest from Games Workshop about their agreement with Amazon Studios.
So, from the sounds of it, there are two massive Warhammer projects officially on the way from Games Workshop and Amazon Studios, both championed by Henry Cavill.
Games Workshop’s Agreement to Develop Films & Television
Per their investor post, it does seem that Games Workshop is keeping its eye on the IP prize, so to speak, with caveats on how Amazon portrays its universes. Which, if you remember, was a major part of the previous “deal collapsed” rumors below.
While it is good that Games Workshop is so very protective of its IP, it looks like hobbyists will have to wait at least a year for the two parties to come to a consensus on the look and feel of the new projects.
This, coupled with their grandiose statement on their mid-year financials, seems to line up well with the rumors below (if you are into tin foil theories.
Licensing – we own what we believe is some of the best under exploited intellectual property (‘IP’) globally. In the period reported, we have continued to patiently seek partners that can help us fulfil this potential. We will continue to grantnlicences to carefully chosen partners that respect the need for us to have complete ownership of our unique IP, to ensuren no harm is done to the core business: a key risk we highlight every year. We will ensure we do everything we can to make the day to day IP approval process seamless. This process now rests within our Warhammer Studio; with the experts who understand our ambitions and have the IP knowledge.
RUMORS: The GW, Amazon, & Henry Cavill Warhammer Series Might Not Happen
Rumors about the Games Workshop, Henry Cavill, and Amazon Warhammer project / series come from Valrak.
Unfortunately, Valrak said this comes from a source that hasn’t been wrong before, and he’s heard it from at least two different people. Sometimes, though, deals take a long time to come to fruition, so there’s always the chance someone is reading too much into insufficient info.
It is wild that GW would let one person rush the deal along without having anyone on the legal team actually look at the contract. Knowing what we do about Games Workshop internally, it’s definitely not impossible that someone was talking about a big deal with Amazon and Henry Cavill, and other people in the company just went along with it because of the excitement and implications for the future of the game.
Now we can see that they added a very tantalizing line in their investor report to specifically address the handling of their IP with the Amazon deal:
Games Workshop and Amazon will work together for a period of 12 months to agree creative guidelines for the films and television series to be developed by Amazon. The agreement will only proceed once the creative guidelines are mutually agreed between Games Workshop and Amazon.
One way to look at all this is that it may hint that there may have been some internal strife at GW over this deal. Perhaps so much that someone leaked the statement above in order to affect some sort of favorable outcome at the company.
We will never know for sure, but with how litigious Games Workshop is with their IP, it seems like this is something they should have definitely had the legal team check. Regardless, if this rumor is true and a high-up wanted the glory for landing an insane deal and letting Amazon (as the far bigger company) write the terms they wanted, there’s almost no way GW could go forward without this distinction in the contract.
If they gave the IP to Amazon in such an irresponsible manner, they could lose a degree of control and even be forced to license their own IP back from them for other projects. As we all know how they have been in the past with other licensees like Fantasy Flight Games, we just can’t see them doing that for any amount of money…
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This all seems somewhat odd because GW, Cavill, and Amazon all made announcements about this Warhammer project or series. So if someone at GW really went off the rails signing a deal, and then everyone else just went along with it, what do they do at this point? Their stocks soared when the deal was announced (we’ll look at the numbers below), and one of the biggest movie stars in the world (and the biggest celebrity proponent of GW) has said this is happening.
Would they just give up on the project, or would they somehow rework it? It looks like we know a bit more now about the result of the first round of negotiations between the two companies. We hope that in another year, they will both be able to agree on the creative guidelines and actually produce Warhammer and 40k-themed movies, shows, and series.
Games Workshop Stock Soared Almost 20% On the Back of Henry Cavill Warhammer Series
Editor’s note: GBX is penny sterling, so the price of Games Workshop stock in this image actually reads as £85.07 GBP; the USD rate was higher at $87.55
This is so wild, honestly; as you can see, in the five days leading up to the announcement of this partnership in 2022, GW was slightly going down, and then bam, up 1,330 GBX in one day! More so than even in one day, this basically happened within a single hour.
As you can see from this chart, from when markets opened (8:00 a.m. GMT), in about 15 minutes, they shot up basically 20%! It dipped a little here and there but more or less remained at that number all day. While having a Warhammer series made by Amazon is obviously going to boost business, we also have to assume announcing it with Henry Cavill at the same time had to help the giant numbers.
However, this raises a few very interesting questions. First, they are still extremely early in the process, and even the GW investor page said not to expect to see anything in the forecast until May 2023 at the earliest. Now, we’re about six months from when GW said to expect something, and we still haven’t heard anything… which unfortunately either means there have been considerable delays or the rumors are somewhat accurate.
One last concern about the Amazon Warhammer Series / Project
From Warhammer Community and their Investor Page.
Amazon Studios today announced that it has secured global rights to Warhammer 40,000, based on the immensely popular intellectual property from Games Workshop (GAW) that has given rise to an immersive global hobby – Warhammer. The agreement encompasses rights to the universe across series, film, and more, and will sit alongside GAW’s activities as they continue to make the best miniatures in the world. This is the first deal of its kind for Amazon Studios for IP of this scale, and it allows the company to utilize the title across its entertainment businesses.
This does say series, film, and more… Does that mean Amazon owns/ has rights to license deals for the IP and can gatekeep anything on the entertainment side of things that could impact their business?
Again, though, these are all just rumors, so take them with all the salt you need!
Between the WWE and Hollywood, Warhammer seems to have quickly become more and more mainstream. Check out more articles on Warhammer going mainstream below!
- Actor Henry Cavill Confirms He’s a Warhammer hobbyist!
- Henry Cavill Proves He Listens to Warhammer 40k Fans
- WWE Superstars Storm Warhammer World!
- Spider-Man Just Asked Superman To Play Warhammer
- Shayna Baszler Challenges Graham Norton Over Warhammer 40k!
- 10 Celebrities That Play Warhammer Will Surprise You
- Even The BBC Agrees With Henry Cavill’s Warhammer Love
- Henry Cavill Wants to Make a Warhammer 40k Movie & More
What do you think about these new and concerning rumors about the deal between Amazon, Games Workshop, and Henry Cavill for the Warhammer IP?
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About the Author: Rob Baer
Rob Baer
Job Title: Managing Editor
Founded Spikey Bits in 2009
Socials: Rob Baer on Facebook and @catdaddymbg on X
About Rob Baer: Founder, Publisher, & Managing Editor of Spikey Bits, the leading tabletop gaming news website focused on the hobby side of wargaming and miniatures. Rob has won many Warhammer 40k Tournaments over the years, including the Adepticon Team Tournament and American Team Tournaments, and is on a first-name basis with almost every major company in the space.
He’s all gaming all the time. With over 30 years of experience in retail and distribution, Rob knows all the products and exactly which ones are the best. He advocates for gaming stores and manufacturers in these difficult times, always looking for the next big thing to feature for the miniatures hobby, helping everyone to provide the value consumers want.
While he’s played every edition of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy (since 5th Edition) and has been hobbying on miniatures since the 1908s, Titans of all sizes will always be his favorite! It’s even rumored that his hobby vault rivals the Solemnance Galleries, containing rulebooks filled with lore from editions long past, ancient packs of black-bordered Magic Cards, and models made of both pewter and resin.
