It’s been an interesting couple of years for Henry Cavill, the Superman-turned-Witcher actor who, in a shockingly brief run of bad luck, ended up out of both jobs. But he landed on his feet at the head of a new Warhammer 40,000 “cinematic universe,” and in a new interview with Josh Horowitz he said there’s nowhere he’d rather be.
“It is the greatest privilege of my professional career to have this opportunity,” Cavill said of the big-budget Warhammer 40,000 project, which he will both produce and star in. “I can’t say too much, again it’s early days still, but to have this opportunity to bring it to the screen and be at the tiller so it can be faithful, is key to me.
“This is the stuff I’ve been dealing with since I was a kid. This is the stuff I spend my free time daydreaming about, as an adult as well. And I get to bring it into life. And there is no greater reason that I joined the industry than doing something like this, and I’m very happy to be here.”
His comments might come off to the casual observer as those of a guy trying to make lemons into a fine English ale, but Henry’s Warhammer fandom is legitimate and well-documented. He spent his quarantine time during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic painting Warhammer miniatures; he has a little cameo in Total War: Warhammer 2; he interrupts interviews to talk about Warhammer; and if you happen to get a Warhammer reference wrong, he will politely but firmly correct you. So when Henry says he really is just that jazzed to be doing a Warhammer thing, even after unexpectedly losing two high-profile gigs over the span of just a few months, you kinda have to believe him.
The debut of the Warhammer 40,000 cinematic universe is likely still a long way off: The deal to make it happen between Games Workshop and Amazon Studios was only nailed down in December 2023, and Cavill apparently hasn’t even made up his mind about who he wants to be yet. Inquisitor? Primarch? God-Emperor of Mankind? The possibilities seem endless. But even though details remain distant, if Cavill is really as happy about how it’s all worked out as he says, then I have to admit that there’s a little bit of fanboy inside of me who’s really happy for him.
