Ultramarines - The Film

News is bubbling up that there is a W40K film in production. Ultramarines, according to the publicity blurb, is to be produced by the London-based company, Codex Pictures (the people behind the Lego BIONICLE films) and "will use CGI and state-of-the-art animation production techniques". It should also clock in at around 70 mins (and will, I'm guessing, most likely be released straight to DVD and sold in GW stores).

I am obviously excited about this, not least because of my interest in W40K fanfilms and fandom generally. My excitement, though, is tempered with a fair bit of pessimism as W40K fandom has been here before. Back in 2001, there were news reports that GW was in discussion with Dreamworks to produce a £25m film. The subsequent project, Bloodquest, however never made it off the starting blocks - allegedly being pulled because GW needed the cash to fund buying the rights to produce miniatures for the LoTR films. All that remains from the project, at least in the public domain, is a trailer for it over on youtube. My fear is that the project will either run out of money or, based on past form, GW will pull the plug on it before the project really gets going.