It’s official: Henry Cavill is trading Superman and Geralt of Rivia for the other love of his life, the grim dark future of Warhammer 40,000's 41st millennium. But the world of Warhammer is filled with a whole galaxy of wild characters. Who could Cavill lend his talents to? Here’s a list of... well, most of them probably won’t be Amazon’s first choice.
He’s had experience with elves before, but what if he was an elf? In space? And had big wiiiiiings? This could be any of the Aeldari’s heroes, Phoenix Lords—the leaders of the individual specialized Aspect Warrior factions of the Aeldari military paths—or otherwise, mostly because the thought of Cavill having to play against type here is interesting.
Do Hive Tyrants talk? They’re the psychic enforcers of the will of a Tyranid Hive fleet over the smaller members of the horde race, so probably just in their heads. I do think it would be funny to have a massive horrifying alien creature charging about the place, and then occasionally Henry Cavill’s voice ethereally hisses out of it.
The Astra Militarum, the human footsoldiers of the Imperium’s armed forces, are Just People. They’re not supersoldiers like the Space Marines, they’re meant to be a shield of meat butchered by the platoonful defending the Imperium’s worlds from nightmarish threats, firing their piddly lasguns and hoping for the best. They’re dwarfed by their enhanced allies and foes alike, and it’s rare that a Guardsman has a long career, or retirement. So putting Henry Cavill in a set of their standard issue boots having him be a tiny regular dude would be very fun.
Orks—the K is what makes them sci-fi!—are some of the most fun and silly parts of Warhammer 40K’s mostly absurd rather than usually fun world. They exist to wage war on anything that moves, and are usually not the sharpest ax in the armory, so to speak, but Thraka—the infamous Warboss of two of the three wars for control of the Imperial world Armageddon—is known for his relative cunning and strategic acumen for an Ork, on top of still being a mean warrior in his own right. But also, can you imagine Henry Cavill trying to do an ork voice?
Gregor Eisenhorn? Never heard of him. Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau was the first ever member of the Imperial Inquisition—the heresy-investigation branch of the Imperial forces—introduced in the pages of the very first Warhammer 40,000 sourcebook, Rogue Trader, back in 1987, and seeing the early days of the Inquisition through his eyes could be very interesting. Also, imagine how mad Disney would get.
One of the Tau Empire’s most prolific warriors—and a controversial renegade who rules his own enclave of the mecha-piloting, caste-driven Tau society that roams the galaxy enforcing death or the embrace of its “Greater Good” philosophy on other races—Farsight is a mean, giant-robot-piloting master strategist, and it’d be interesting to have Cavill flex his chops in a distinctly alien role.
Farsight is actually a lithe, blue-skinned alien guy inside the mecha, for what it’s worthy. I just thought it was funny to put Cavill’s head on the robot.
The infamous leader of Gaunt’s Ghosts, aka the Tanith First, Commissar Gaunt is very good at his job in a way that is rarely appreciated, because he is but a cog in the larger Imperial war machine. The primary stars of Dan Abnett’s novel series Gaunt’s Ghosts, they could serve as intriguing source material for a 40K show to draw on, especially considering the regiment is usually deployed on specialized recon and investigation missions. It’d be a neat window into the human side of Warhammer’s military world.
One of the most feared figures in all of the fallen forces of the Chaos Space Marines, Abaddon the Despoiler—the leader of the Black Legion, and the master behind not one, but 13 “Black Crusades” against the Imperium of Man—is one of the ultimate evils in a universe jam packed with ultimate evils. It’s easy to put Cavill in the position of a hero, but what if was an absolute monster instead?
Sure, they’ve said it’s a 40K show. But what if... it was a 30K show instead? The time period of the Horus Heresy—a massive civil war among the chapters of the Space Marines when the titular Horus, the God-Emperor’s most beloved son, is corrupted by the evils of Chaos—is a vast one, ripe for storytelling, and studios love an origin story.
But why Sanguinius instead of Horus? The leader of the Blood Angels Space Marines, Sanguinius is known for two things: having giant angel wings, and dying horribly at Horus’ hands at the climax of the Heresy. Gives Cavill an eventual way out, at least.
The White Dwarf of White Dwarf Magazine fame, Grombrindal actually exists in multiple forms, and most typically in the realm of Warhammer and Age of Sigmar, the fantasy iterations of Games Workshop’s tabletop games. But there is a 40K version of Grombrindal, where he is “what if dwarf, but sci-fi?” He’s got a big robo-axe! He’s got a beard made out of metal tubes! Now imagine he was Henry Cavill.
People know that Warhammer 40K is violent, and that it’s over the top, and that it’s often very very angry, and you know who’s all three of those things? Well, most famous characters in Warhammer 40K, but in this case Khârn. The iconic warrior of the World Eaters Chaos Space Marine legion and the most important champion of Khorne, the Chaos god of War (and skulls, and murder, and rage, and blood, and a lot of other angry things), Khârn could make for a fun character for Cavill mostly because he could just let go and let it rip as an unhinged, chainsaw-axe-wielding bloodthirsty monster.
I think it would be funny if Henry Cavill finally got a Warhammer TV show and he played a desiccated corpse locked into a giant golden throne fueled by the psychic energy of daily human sacrifices. My boss, and fellow nerd David Ewalt, thinks we should take this seriously and do an Emperor of Man origin story—like I said, studios love an origin story—during the Horus Heresy, when the Emperor was still a God-Man, and not a God-Fancy-Half-Corpse-Statue-Figure.
Imagine this: you have cast one of the most gorgeous men on the planet in your new Warhammer 40,000 streaming show. Less than one episode in, you have him grievously wounded and what remnants are left of his physical form are hooked up into a giant walking coffin-mech with like six guns attached, and sealed up never to be seen again.
The formerly dead and now returned leader of the most iconic chapter of the Space Marines, the Ultramarines—who are almost guaranteed to appear in Amazon’s project, as they’re basically the face of the franchise—Guilliman is an interesting figure as he has the perspective of what the current state of the Imperium is like compared to when he was first alive... and it’s not a wholly glowing one. That’s a rare kind of internal conflict that could be interesting for Cavill to play off of, and if we simply must have some Space Marines, they might as well be interesting!
Cavill loves the Custodes, his army of choice in 40K, so I suppose there simply must be one of the golden-armored bodyguards of the God-Emperor himself. Valoris is the current Custodian of the Adeptus Custodes, and essentially the most revered and mighty warrior in the Imperium’s forces.