Amazon MGM Studios is developing a Warhammer 40,000 animated event series — a spinoff of its adult animated anthology Secret Level — alongside the previously announced live-action adaptation starring Henry Cavill.

Variety was first to report the news, with Deadline corroborating through sources close to the project. Amazon itself declined to comment.

The animated series comes from Amazon MGM Studios, Blur Studios and Games Workshop, the British company that has owned the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop miniatures game since its creation in 1987. Secret Level, which streams on Prime Video, devoted its fifth episode to a Warhammer 40,000 story titled "They Shall Know No Fear" in late 2024 — and Amazon included that episode among its 2025 Emmy Award nominees. The new animated series will build directly on that foundation.

Henry Cavill, already set to star in and executive produce the live-action Warhammer 40,000 series, will also executive produce the animated version. His producing partner Natalie Viscuso joins him, as does Secret Level creator Tim Miller, who executive produces for Blur Studios. Vertigo Entertainment's Roy Lee and Games Workshop's Andy Smillie round out the executive producing team.

Dave Wilson, who directed the Secret Level Warhammer episode, co-created and directs the new series. John Orloff, whose credits include Masters of the Air, co-created it alongside Wilson. The storyline will revolve around the Deathwatch — an elite group of Space Marines who specialise in hunting alien threats within the Warhammer 40,000 universe, a grim far-future setting where humanity wages constant war across the galaxy.

The animated project is one thread of a much larger tapestry Amazon has been weaving around the Warhammer 40,000 property. The company first secured global rights to the game from Games Workshop in December 2022, covering film, television and associated merchandising. Games Workshop then confirmed in December 2024 that it had granted Amazon exclusive rights to develop films and television series set within the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

Cavill's live-action series was formally confirmed as in development at Amazon MGM Studios that same month, per Deadline. In July 2026, Games Workshop revealed that horror director Mike Flanagan had been recruited to work on the adaptations, with Deadline reporting he was in talks to executive produce the Cavill-led live-action series. Cavill's executive producing role spans the entire Warhammer 40,000 franchise across all Amazon MGM productions, per an October 2024 Deadline report.

For fans of the tabletop game and its sprawling fiction, two parallel screen adaptations — one animated, one live-action — means the Warhammer 40,000 universe is moving toward screens on two fronts at once. The Deathwatch focus gives the animated series a specific, recognisable corner of that universe to explore, while the live-action series remains in development with one of Hollywood's most prominent genre producers attached.

Neither Amazon nor Games Workshop has announced a release window for the animated series or the live-action project.