Most people will just ignore the news that Amazon has signed a deal with Games Workshop, the company that makes tabletop models for the nerds among us.
As part of the agreement, the streaming giant and the Nottingham company will develop related television and film concepts. Warhammer 40,000 The setting is a dark sci-fi portrait of a future forever embroiled in war.
The collaboration between billionaire Jeff Bezos and the British model maker may seem controversial, but it marks the latest attempt to bring geek entertainment into the mainstream. It may also seem like a small thing when kept between last year and last summer. Dungeons and Dragons A film starring Chris Pine and an ongoing fantasy series on streaming services such as Game of Thrones or Wheel of Time. “Warhammer “It’s just a toy soldier for people with too much free time, too much money to spend, and no social life,” his critics might say.
And in some ways they will be right. But make no mistake: this deal is a big deal that will have a big impact on the small screen, like a smoking crater left by a stray plasma beam.
Games Workshop is already a huge success in the UK. Founded in 1978 by childhood friends John Peake, Sir Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson, the company has grown from a publisher of typewritten role-playing adventures to an international retailer with half-year sales of £235 million to November. Leading brands – fantasy background Warhammerand the above Warhammer 40,000 – are guiding lights. Sales have increased during the pandemic. According to interactive investor analyst Richard Beddard: “Warhammer “It’s a niche hobby, but global niches can be big.”
Today, with a market capitalization of over £3 billion, the company is worth more than Royal Mail, Greggs or Manchester United based on the value of its publicly traded shares. With around 2,000 UK employees, the company doesn’t just design stacks of tiny plastic figures in fantasy worlds, wartime sci-fi dystopias and even similar real-life universes. Lord of the Rings film series, but also produces books, magazines, card games and video games.
This is the kind of reach and brand recognition that Amazon is likely aiming for. Meanwhile, war-torn planets will disappear through cooperation. Warhammer 40,000 This is the first time the game has hit home screens and Games Workshop is hoping to attract new toy soldier collectors.
This also explains why Henry Cavill, best known for playing Superman or perhaps Geralt of Rivia in the Netflix series The Witcher – is on board. For existing Warhammer Fans, Cavill is already the coolest face in the hobby: a movie star with good Hollywood looks who loves to spend his time gluing together plastic super-soldiers and painting them gold. He’s managed to ignore Graham Norton’s brash rants about the matter on national television, and regularly posts updates about his beloved army (the Adeptus Custodes, for those who care) to his 27 million Instagram followers.
He is also known for protecting the integrity of the projects in which he is involved. fans witcher Books and Video Games was pleased to hear that Cavill frequently asked the series’ writers and producers to discuss details that he felt were inconsistent with the source material. Warhammer Players will be hoping he takes a similar stance in helping Amazon differentiate its Primaris from its Primarchs.
We still have a long way to go before we are blessed Squigs: The Musical However, on Prime Video. The deal with Amazon is for only 12 months. During this time, the companies will determine creative guidelines for planned films and TV series. After that, it would be years before Cavill could start hiring writers and other staff, preparing scripts, scouting locations, and building sets.
It could still end in nothing. Firstly, Games Workshop has a rich history of fans creating video content based on their work. In one famous case, the company offered someone a job animating its wildly popular character videos. They refused, their YouTube videos were mysteriously disabled, and Patreon quietly became unavailable. Other content has been removed from the internet due to updated intellectual property policies that specifically prohibit unlicensed fan films and animation.
The “nerd boom” may be short-lived. In the US it was last week Dungeons and Dragons Owner Hasbro said it would lay off 1,100 employees – 20 percent of its workforce – because “market headwinds” were hurting sales.
However, to me Games Workshop is the banker. It has a loyal fan base, a strong product and, most importantly, fantastic stories to share with a wider audience. I’d trust Cavill (and maybe even Amazon) to make something worth watching.
Source: I News
I am Mario Pickle and I work in the news website industry as an author. I have been with 24 News Reporters for over 3 years, where I specialize in entertainment-related topics such as books, films, and other media. My background is in film studies and journalism, giving me the knowledge to write engaging pieces that appeal to a wide variety of readers.