Watching Series Two of Raised By Wolves, the sci-fi epic about a race of human survivors having fled Earth (and two factions warring over religion) reveals a world of awe-inspiring visuals belied by every facet of human morality.
Filmed on location in South Africa, Raised by Wolves is set on the planet of “Kepler-22b,” a location that feels so wonderfully futuristic and makes up a series that is so colorfully imaginative. With flashbacks of Earth and the true capabilities of the necromancer androids, which were created as complete killing machines with the power of flight and a scream that ends lives in seconds, this is a show with world building (and subsequent destruction of said world) really bar none.
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Produced by Ridley Scott, with scheming, shifty humans rubbing elbows with highly advanced androids, grotesque mermen that emerge from acid water, and general body horror with regular bloody violence, Raised By Wolves has Scott’s Alien universe’s fingertips all over it.
Warner Bros. / Interactive Entertainment
With such dangerous sights, you’d be in the right frame of mind if the show brought to mind the world of Warhammer. These characters are marooned on Kepler-22b, where the wildlife and nature is intentionally out to kill everyone. The location is dire, dusty, with religious relics and locations peaking above its landscape akin to the £30+ kits making up the scenery of the battlefields in a Games Workshop store.
The Warhammer series, and its sister series Warhammer 40,000 (set in a battle-weary 41st century), has such an intrinsic world of background, warring forces, its own gods, and more religion than the actual bible. Fans of the Warhammer brand who want a cinematic adaptation should tentatively be watching a TV show as visually stunning, highly ambitious, and entertaining as Raised By Wolves as a blueprint for seeing their own 3cm tall favorites finally on the big screen.
The Dawn of War
The Warhammer tabletop game was created by Rick Priestley in 1983, who would go on to birth an iteration of 40K four years later in ‘87. That’s a wealth of almost four decades of detailed characters leading vast colorful armies of clear factions, alongside spin-off books and comics, resulting in an always high standard of video games and next to 400 physical retail stores for its company, Games Workshop.
By the end of 2021, following a full-blown year versus Covid-19, Games Workshop still pulled profits of £88.2 million before tax ($109.70 million U.S.). 39 years on, the Warhammer brand remains gargantuan, ever cinematic and - importantly for IPs transitioning to television and film - globally recognized.
Critical Hits
The Warhammer series, despite its epic cinematic scope, hasn’t made much of a foray onto the screen since its inception. In 2010, the dryly titled Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie was released. Despite a surprisingly stacked voice cast in John Hurt, Terrence Stamp, and Sean Pertwee, the film sits at an audience score of 39% on Rotten Tomatoes and the animation has aged like a Burger King Whopper on the backseat of a car in summer.
Codex Pictures
In 2019, a live action series titled Eisenhorn, based on the 40K novels of the same name, was announced with showrunner Frank Spotnitz attached. With Spotnitz (a proven name in high concept sci-fi television with the likes of X-Files and, more recently, The Man in the High Castle) involved, this news was mouth-watering for fans.
With very little news since then (and zero information on the official Eisenhorn IMDB page, bar the title) the project was assumed to be as dead as a Necron warrior. Earlier this year, however, Games Workshop released this statement, reassuringly touching base with the fans:
With the addition of Warhammer’s own streaming service, the bluntly titled “Warhammer+,” there is now an online hub for all Warhammer based content, including animated shorts based on the worlds. Released in August 2021, the streaming service would controversially opt for an all-or-nothing approach to its brand: clamping down on fan-fictions and films, while offering specific creators to work directly for the service instead.
In terms of media and entertainment, progress continues and we are delighted to have signed up a major LA based agency to help us. Eisenhorn is in development and the subject of discussions with potential distribution partners. We have made some solid progress in our writers’ room and have a number of further exciting live action and animated projects in development. We remain ambitious and patient.
At its kindest, Games Workshop’s decision to offer third-party creators careers under the umbrella (or threaten them with copystrike bans) was a savvy company ploy to be the one-stop shop for everything Warhammer-oriented. At its worst, it felt like an internet form of gentrification. Worse yet, when Warhammer+ did finally go live to the masses on August 25th 2021, it was downright underwhelming and felt unfinished.
Orc or Ork?
In addition to the stunning Raised By Wolves, the sci-fi/fantasy genre is alive and well on television and streaming. This year saw the release of the Halo TV series (based on the hit video game of the same name). Irking fans, its story occasionally deviating from the games’ story, pits a 26th century spartan soldier in an ongoing battle against their own evil space invaders.
Paramount+
Back in 2016, the video game World of Warcraft got the same treatment in a feature film, simply titled Warcraft. Helmed by Duncan Jones (and coincidentally also starring Raised by Wolves’ star Travis Fimmel), this pitted humans against the savage Orcs; the green-skinned tireless menace, Orks make up one of the major antagonists across the Warhammer universe too. Master Chief, meanwhile, Halo’s khaki-green armored hero, isn’t dissimilar to that of your blue and reds of the heavy space marine grunt and their never-ending battles against grotesque alien forces.
And yes, both of the above examples have been shot to pieces by the bulletfire of critics and fans alike - but they do show that there is a space(port) for these sorts of productions. They can be done, and have previously with quality names attached and plump budgets supporting them.
Warhammer, with its far greater wealth and history than both Halo (the original game was released in 2001) and W.O.W. (1994), should learn from these examples and push on confidently with their own feature film while the market is still hungry for this sort of dystopian fiction. The enthralling science fiction film Dune, one of the biggest and best movies of 2021, also showed that these types of movies can succeed financially as well.
Nerd culture as a whole has never been more popular and accepting either. Take the Dungeons and Dragons game, another tabletop based game of fantasy elements and multiple players that has never been bigger; it will also welcome its own feature film, scheduled for next year with Star Trek’s Chris Pine set to star.
Sega
Gotta Go Fast
In 2013, Sega acquired Relic Entertainmaint from THQ, the company that had found major success with the Dawn of War games on the PC. With Sega (and their “Sega Sammy Group,” the dedicated film branch of the company), which recently dipped their furry blue toes into filmmaking water with their highly successful Sonic the Hedgehog movie adaptations no less, Games Workshop have a world renowned studio on their side here on top of a proven relationship with the brand for the best part of a decade.
Looking at the current landscape of popular sci-fi, and with the Warhammer brand as gigantic and beloved as it is (South Park’s Trey Parker and Man of Steel/The Witcher’s Henry Cavill are fans of Warhammer), coupled with a major studio like Sega on their side, it’s high time Games Workshop stopped being “ambitious and patient” and rolled the dice on an overdue live-action feature film.
