Henry Cavill is gearing up to front Lionsgate’s upcoming reboot of Highlander.
The Witcher star will be teaming up with John Wick director Chad Stahelski, who has been developing the new take on the fantasy film since 2016.
Released in 1986, Highlander is based on a story by Gregory Widen and centres on a immortal Scottish swordsman named Connor MacLeod, born in the early 1500s, who is tasked with fighting other ageless individuals in the present day in order to stop the evil Kurgan from winning the Prize, aka the collected power of all eternals who ever lived.
Christopher Lambert, Clancy Brown and the late Sean Connery starred.
It went on to spawn four live-action, feature-length sequels, one animated follow-up, three television series and a web series. Not to mention numerous books, comics and video games.
What Happened to Monday’s Kerry Williamson is writing the latest draft of the new film’s script. Meanwhile, Neal H Moritz and Josh Davis are on board as producers, and Amanda Lewis, Patrick Wachsberger and Gregory Widen will executive produce. Peter S Davis, producer of the original film, helped develop this one up until his death in February at age 79.
After Deadline published a story today (May 21) suggesting that Cavill was in talks to appear in the fresh adaptation, the Superman actor took to Instagram to confirm his involvement and tell his followers that he’s been “a fan of Highlander since [he] was [a] lad”.
He went on to note that “this is an opportunity like no other” and how, seeing as he’s a dab-hand with swords given his previous works, it should be lots of fun, too.
“Deep diving into franchise storytelling with all the tools at our disposal, is going to make this an adventure I (and hopefully all of you) shall never forget,” he wrote.
“As you can see from the swipe, I’ve lately been dipping into some of my Scottish heritage, and inadvertently getting my base line research underway,” Cavill added, referencing a photo of two books explaining how to wear a kilt and an almost-empty bottle of sherry cask whiskey.