Warhammer 40,000 will be receiving a live-action show based on the Eisenhorn trilogy, coming from the studio that made Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle.
Games Workshop’s ancient and influential miniature tabletop franchise has spawned many an adaption, but this is the first straightforward TV show the series is getting. Eisenhorn, as the series will reportedly be called, stars the Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn, a fan-favourite who starred in a trilogy of books by Dan Abnett that debuted in 2001. A news release from Games Workshop and studio Big Light Productions said Eisenhorn will be based on said books (Xenos, Malieus, and Hereticus).
Frank Spotnitz (creator of The Man in the High Castle) will serve as both showrunner and executive producer on the series – alongside Big Light Productions’ creative director, Emily Feller – which has only recently entered development. For their part, Games Workshop has released a silly flowchart to explain to fans what the production process for a show like this is like.
Warhammer 40k is the arguably more successful science-fantasy sister series to the medieval Warhammer gameline. 40k plays host to a dark future where there is only war amongst the stars, featuring copious alien races, an ultra-ultra-fascist human government that is still mostly in the right, and the ever-famous Space Marines, presenting lots of ideas for adaptations to use. The tone can range from “hopeless prolonged tragedy” to “gentleman thief robo-skeleton pharoah fights genius monkey engineers”, so… uh… yeah. Eisenhorn will focus largely on a human Inquisitor who seeks to root out and destroy demonic and alien forces (yes, there’s both), learning more about himself, his world, and his employers in the process, so it’s definitely on the more serious side.
We have no idea on when Warhammer 40,000: Eisenhorn could drop or what the cast looks like, but we await that news with bated breath. Also awaited: set photos, especially of the characters in costume. Is it even Warhammer 40k if there are no Space Marines in all their armour-clad glory?
