Henry's Warhammer

 Ratings for the Ratings god!

To be Henry Cavill is to be largely blessed and a little bit professionally cursed. On the blessed side, you'd be one of the most handsome actors in the world with significant talent who is beloved by the fandoms he touches the world over. On the otherhand, it seems you are cursed to never have a role you can call your own. Or maybe that is blessed, Henry can't really be typecast as anything other than a well-built handsome white guy. (And in Hollywood that ain't a type; it's the whole buffet!) Still, Henry has the star power and charisma to draw swathes of fans, and his face would certainly look fine on the front cover of a movie poster; but for some inexplicable reason the industry just don't want it to happen. Maybe he's secretly difficult to work with behind the scenes? (Really secretly; you'd have thought stories of that would have gotten out after all these years if it were true.) Maybe when he was a child an old crone knocked on his door and he cussed her out for being ugly only to discover the old crone was a vindictive old witch who cursed him to never nail a movie franchise. What? It could happen!

Whatever the case, it just hasn't ever worked out for him. He was one of the leads of the very fun spy action thriller 'The Man from Uncle', which many exuberated declared to be his James Bond; only for that movie to go unloved and never earn a sequel. He became Superman for the DC Cinematic Universe, and fans of Superman seemed to genuine like the take that Henry brought to the role. (I can't say I saw what they saw from that movie; but then I'm not a Superman fan.) But that iteration of the DCEU just seemed to slowly become worse and worse until now when it's slowly been executed out the back of the barn and Henry Cavill has been kicked out of the Superman role before he ever got a sequel. (Which is a shame. The movie titles could have made for sick posters. 'Man of Tomorrow' and some other 'Man' themed title somewhere probably.) Oh, and he was Geralt for Netflix's The Witcher; before that sort of went off the rails and he parted ways with the creators.

Like I said, the man is cursed. Probably since a child. He needs to kidnap a French peasant and make her fall in love with him through dubious methods. (What's that? He's currently in a relationship? Hmm, she doesn't look French to me or like a Peasant... you're only delaying the inevitable Cavill!) But fandoms love him, and why? Because everytime he's ever hinted as his personal life the man seems to be dialled directly into what it's like to be a fan of franchises and fantasy, and not just a fan of movies. Every actor is a fan of movies, it seems; and hearing them gush about their first time rushing to the cinema is cute but not entirely relatable to a world of people who like seeing cool stories more than they do the delivery method. I'm sure Henry is a movie lover as well, but the man is also a franchise fan of so many nerd icons. He plays video games when he has spare time; and not just mobile games- the man is a fan of actual action RPGs! He loves Warcraft and he seems forever reverent to the source material of anything he works on; which is rumoured to be one of the key reasons why he left The Witcher to one of the Hemsworth clones. (I think it was the... Australian one...) He's a nerd like one of us! You know, just... jacked and handsome and successful and... Okay, he's nothing like us; but man does he make for a stunning spokesperson for our hobbies!

In fact, it's actually his passionate nerd-side which is the reason for this topic today, as you've probably clued onto because this news is everywhere. After being kicked out of everywhere in Hollywood it would seem, Henry Cavill is harnessing his time spent in the industry, reaching out to his contacts, and doing the ultimate fan move; he's jumpstarting his own adaptation of his favourite franchise. (Potentially. I don't know if Warhammer is his favourite franchise, but he definitely loves it.) The franchise that Hollywood would absolutely never touch with a tenfoot pole because of how expensive and untraditional it is, the Gothic Grim-Dark (I looked it up this time) Universe of mutual evil known as 'Warhammer 40k' will see a Amazon funded series executive produced by and starring Henry Cavill. And the Warhammer fandom went wild.

Now if you've hung about these woods you might have heard me express my long history with the Warhammer franchise. Or lack thereof. Because I've never managed to get into the franchise through any of it's thousand caterpillar leg entry points- but I've always been curious. Throughout all my explorations into different games, the idea and militarist fascistic pseudo-religious imperialism of Warhammer 40k doesn't really have much of an equal in Sci-Fantasy, so of course I'm going to wonder about something I've never experienced before. Recently, however, the 'try everything and see what happens' approach has been striking ever closer to my sweet spot of interest. Space Marine 2 looks like a stupid amount of violent fun. I just found out about an X-Com style tactical game in the Warhammer Universe called 'Chaos Gate', oh- and then there's 'Rogue Trader'. The game I have sweaty dreams about at night. That's pretty interesting too. And now Henry Cavill is going to be fronting a series? Consider me intrigued!

The appeal of Warhammer for me comes from the proposition of a universe without any good people or righteous hero. There are the loyalists, the heretics and the hedonistic xeno scum who litter the stars. Everyone one of them a vain and selfish subculture beholden to their rigorously fascistic formalities and a society driven by warfare. The key visuals of this universe are the bloodied and violent Space Marines with their oversized cauldrons and Chainsaw swords; demonstrating exactly everything you need to know about the Warhammer world. These are a people born and bred for endless battle in a holy war against basically the entire rest of the universe. Which is what makes the scope of an actual series set within this franchise pretty much endless.

Of course, Games Workshop are renowned for their tendency to give the licence for making games based off their franchise to anyone with a spare fiver in their back pocket. Quality control hasn't been super on point with this series and recently the table-top fans have started to feel a little forgotten by the main manufacturers. But a series with Henry has the potential to change all that and I just know that Games Workshop are feeling their buzz of opportunity on the air. D&D has that honestly middling looking movie coming out, but a Henry led Warhammer series could leapfrog that just by the merit of who's leading it. This could be the rocket into the mainstream that Warhammer fans could never have dreamt of and, judging from the few Warhammer fans I've met in my life, are probably decently afraid of.

I'm chuffed about so many in-roads to this new franchise opening up, and am only vaguely worried about the inevitable congestion this is going to cause. Inevitably even if one of these projects turns out to be a total crapshoot, the others will raise the profile of the franchise regardless, and now the efforts of all these disparate and largely unconnected creatives is going to be subconsciously filled away under 'The Henry franchise'. I know that there's an unspoken trust that is filled upon fandom heroes like Henry, but I'm a realist at heart so I'm going to have to remain cautiously optimistic. If he can get the money, maintain the creative control, and not screw it all up in the creator's room; we could be looking at a new age of adaptation, of gaming relevance and of TV. So no pressure, Mr Ex-Superman. No pressure at all...