Chad Stahelski, the director of John Wick, has given a few details about the highly awaited Highlander film, which will star The Witcher actor Henry Cavill.
Speaking with The Direct, Stahelski stated that the picture is set beyond present-day New York and Hong Kong, with Cavill playing a sword master who has been alive for over 500 years, training in various martial arts along the way.
The Highlander films and television series center on an age-old conflict between immortal warriors who can only be killed by beheading. In the 1986 film, Christopher Lambert played Connor MacLeod, who is trained by Sean Connery’s character Ramírez. It combined past and present-day narratives, moving from the 16th century Scottish Highlands to 1980s New York.
Cavill’s position has not been officially confirmed, but given that his character is almost 500 years old and has spent that time training for fight, he is undoubtedly one of Highlander’s eternal warriors. The question is: does he play a MacLeod?
Stahelski provided a hazy plot setup: “… And we’re carrying it forward from the early 1500s in the highlands to beyond present-day New York and Hong Kong, and seeing how it goes. There is ample chance for action. There’s an opportunity to portray a character that few people get to play. And it’s a love story, but not in the way you may expect. On John Wick, I learned a lot about how to twist the narrative a little… another type of myth.”
And on Cavill’s character: “My selling pitch to [Henry Cavill] was that you had a guy who has been living for over 500 years. He would never have chosen to be in this predicament. So you get to cover a wide range of a character arc there. And you get to meet someone who has been training for over 500 years and has experimented with a variety of martial arts.”
In August of last year, Stahelski hinted that the Highlander revival may be the beginning of something great. “I think we have some very good elements now,” he told me. “The trick is when you have the tagline ‘there can only be one,’ you can’t just kill everybody the first time.”
“Our story engages a lot of the same characters and stuff like that,” Stahelski continued. “But we’ve also brought in elements of all the TV shows, and we’re trying to do a bit of a prequel, a setup to The Gathering, so we have room to grow the property.”
In Highlander, The Gathering is a summons that forces the immortal warriors to face off in what is known as the Game.
Cavill boasted about his Highlander movie training in April, promising even more spectacular sword abilities than he exhibited in Netflix’s The Witcher. “If you thought you’d seen me do swordwork before, you haven’t seen anything yet,” Cavill told you.
“I’ve been a fan of Highlander since I was a lad,” Cavill wrote on Instagram when the film was announced in 2021. “From the movies in the 1980s, Queen smeared splendor on the TV show with an actor who resembled one of my brothers. Being not afraid of swords and having a director as great as Chad Stahelski at the helm, this is an opportunity unlike any other.”
Stahelski stated that he hopes to begin principal photography in the spring of 2025, with a release date planned for 2026.
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