Henry Cavill's Warhammer 40,000 Animated Series Will Focus on the Deathwatch

Amazon's Warhammer 40,000 animated series has a clearer shape now — it will follow the Deathwatch, an elite Space Marine faction specializing in hunting alien threats, and director Dave Wilson describes it as a "long-form story" set in the 40K universe. Henry Cavill is attached as executive producer.

The series spins directly out of the Warhammer 40,000 episode of Secret Level, Amazon's animated anthology that aired in 2024. Wilson, who directed that episode, returns as director and co-creator alongside John Orloff, a writer known for Band of Brothers. Animation studio Blur Studios is back too. Wilson told Variety that Secret Level was always designed as a launchpad rather than a standalone anthology: "The response to the Warhammer episode was extraordinary, particularly from fans who understood how much care went into getting the world right. This series gives us the opportunity to build on that foundation and tell a much larger story. I've wanted to tell a long-form story set in Warhammer 40,000 for more than 20 years." Episode count and a release window haven't been confirmed yet.

This animated project exists alongside — and may actually beat to air — Amazon's separate live-action Warhammer 40,000 series, which still doesn't have a finished script. That live-action show also has Cavill attached, and horror director Mike Flanagan recently joined the project. The Deathwatch, for those unfamiliar, are a secretive chamber of Space Marines drawn from different chapters and tasked specifically with combating xenos threats — a premise that lends itself well to a contained, high-stakes narrative. Warhammer 40,000 as a franchise has a long history of fan-made and licensed animation, but a major studio production at this scale is new territory for Games Workshop's grimdark sci-fi setting.

Amazon also has a second Warhammer episode of Secret Level coming in season two, though that one is set in the Age of Sigmar universe rather than 40K. Between Fallout's success, the upcoming Tomb Raider show with Sophie Turner, a God of War series in casting flux, and a Life is Strange adaptation currently filming, Amazon is clearly doubling down on game-based IP — and Warhammer is shaping up to be one of its bigger bets.