John Wick director Chad Stahelski has offered some insight into his plans for the Henry Cavill-led Highlander reboot, with the action movie director now thinking the project could work even better as a television series. Speaking with Deadline, Stahelski compares the Highlander franchise to that of Mr. Wick, highlighting the differences in starting a mythology from scratch with continuing a lore that has been around for decades.
“I’ve worked on Highlander for years now, for Henry Cavill. Being retroactive is hard. What’s different between Wick and that? With Wick, you weren’t serving seven seasons of TV plus two spinoffs plus five films.”
It is this difference that now has Stahelski considering a Highlander series instead, as it would give him ample time to explore the vast Highlander mythology.
“If I were to do a remake of Highlander right now, you’d expect a lot of mythology in those first two hours, you couldn’t explore stuff without it. Now, Highlander as a TV show now would be amazing. You’d have time to build it out, see all those flashbacks and the potential of it. It’s trickier when you’re trying to do something with that big of a mythology…That would be one to take a really big stab at. Here, we just had the opportunity to really learn as we went on with Wick.”
The Highlander Reboot is Closer to Happening Than it’s Ever Been
Released back in 1986, the original Highlander follows swordsman Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert), a man who hails from the Scottish Highlands and known as the Highlander, MacLeod discovers that he is one of a number of immortal warriors who can be killed only by beheading. After living somewhat peacefully for several centuries, MacLeod settles in New York City and is soon dragged back onto the battlefield when his greatest enemy returns to kill him and thus obtain "the Prize" — a special ability that is given to the last living immortal warrior.
The Highlander franchise has since expanded into sequels, TV outings, books, comics, and more, with many feeling that Chad Stahelski and The Witcher star Henry Cavill are the perfect pair to reboot it for the modern age. So, here’s hoping it will actually, really, properly happen eventually...
Thankfully, Stahelski did promise last year that The Highlander reboot is “closer” to happening than it has “ever been,” with he and his team currently tweaking their plan for the project. “We're in the process of tweaking right now,” he revealed. “I think we know what we want. More importantly than anything, we know what we want to make. It's in the creatives. We know what we're trying to make. It's just a matter of getting it to the point where we feel, "Okay, this is it. Let's go." But we're closer than we've ever been, so that's good.”
For now, audiences can bask in the brilliance of Chad Stahelski with John Wick: Chapter 4. Starring Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgård, Laurence Fishburne, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamier Anderson, Rina Sawayama, Scott Adkins, Ian McShane, and Lance Reddick, John Wick: Chapter 4 is in theaters now and has already bested its predecessors both critically and financially.