Henry Cavill says his HIGHLANDER reboot is ‘amazing’ and will bring ‘big swings’

John Wick director Chad Stahelski is currently developing a reboot of the epic fantasy action film HighlandersAND Henry Cavill is destined to take on the role of protagonist. The film has been in development for years, but is actually very close to production.

Cavill recently spoke about the project during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. He shared how big a fan he is of the franchise and then said that the film’s script is “amazing” and that the film will go through some “big swings.”

“I’m a fan of Highlander, they’re very fun films. Obviously I watched them when I was much younger and I’ve watched them again since then, but also the TV show. I really liked the tradition behind it, that sense of a tragic warrior with is more of a story to tell than a nice guy with a sword, doing interesting things, and that goes even deeper into this.

“What they’ve done so far and what we’re doing with the development of the script is amazing, I think people are going to be really, really happy with it,” Cavill added. “Big swings are important, you play it safe, you just say, ‘Huh, I guess this is good?’ but if you make a big leap, people either love it or hate it.”

I love it when movies take big swings to try and do something new and different! Matthew Vaughn did this recently with his Argyle movie, and although it was silly, I liked it. He did things I had never seen before.

Stahelski has already talked about Highlander, saying it will include both familiar characters and “elements” taken from ’90s TV series: “We’re trying to make our own story [and it] it involves a lot of the same characters and stuff. But we also brought in elements from all the TV shows. We’re trying to create a sort of prequel to The Gathering.”

The gathering refers to the culmination of the almost eternal battle between the immortals. He went on to explain that they’re setting this up to expand and grow the story: “So, we have room to grow the property. We’ve had ideas for days about how to make the characters more interesting and make it an epic TV show.” . I just think it’s a rich, rich mythology.”

The original 1986 film Highlander starred Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, AND Clancy Brown as immortal beings, hunting each other and gathering more power. The film’s classic tagline was: “There can only be one.”

Stahelski also said the reboot is like John Wick with swords and revealed that it was in development as a trilogy. He explained that they are taking the best elements of the franchise’s story and implementing them into a single story that will be spread across a trilogy of films:

“I think the TV series hit on a lot of great things that weren’t in the movie, between the viewers and all different kinds of immortals. How do we put it into a movie mode before we drip it into the TV world? Well, let’s restructure it in parts, let’s look at it like it’s a TV show, let’s look at it like it’s a high-concept trilogy. How do we tell the story of The Gathering, The Quickenings, The Immortals and how do we really build this world even more than the original blueprint? That’s what we’re restructuring right now. We’re taking all the good things from the script that we had before I got involved with the project; redesigning the script to really give us some good chapters one, two and three; and expanding the world.”

He also spoke about his vision for the film, saying:

“The vision that we’re trying to convey and what we’re trying to develop, I consider it very close to Star Wars. The first one is a very satisfying ending but it leaves the door open and that’s how I see it.” . I’d really like to expand it to three. I see The Gathering taking place in threes. It’s complicated, don’t get me wrong, that’s why we’re still developing it. We want to be able to tell three complete stories that are all I think the Star Wars trilogy, at least up until The Empire Strikes Back, is a good example of how we want to work it out.”

It has been revealed that the film is aiming for a 2026 release date.