If there can be only one, you can’t do much better than Henry Cavill. The Man of Steel and Witcher star is in talks to play the lead character in the long-gestating remake of the cult classic Highlander, directed by John Wick’s Chad Stahelski.
Deadline broke the news of the potential casting, which is the biggest movement on a project that’s been gestating for the better part of a decade. Stahelski has been trying to reboot the 1986 sci-fi fantasy for years, but has frequently run up against issues such as the world of Highlander being too freaking big. With Cavill now in talks though, Deadline said “these latest pieces coming together put this film into position to get into production.”
There’s no word if Cavill will be playing Connor MacLeod, the lead character of the original film, or someone new. But it will almost certainly tell a story of an battle that takes places across the centuries, where immortal beings fight each other to the death with only one person remaining. That person is crowned Highlander and is bestowed with additional powers. The original film, which starred Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, and Clancy Brown, recently celebrated its 35th anniversary and we dove back into it. There have also been tons of sequels and TV spinoffs.
Cavill probably doesn’t need any introduction, but we’ll take any excuse to write about him if we can. He first rose to fame when Zack Snyder cast him as Superman in Man of Steel, a role he continued playing for several films and may still return to in the future. He’s Geralt of Rivia on Netflix’s The Witcher, which has plenty of sword-wielding action a la Highlander, along with some coin tossing and bath-tubbing. He played an incredible villain in Mission: Impossible - Fallout and is just generally a personality most people enjoy. He’d be dynamite in the role and we hope it works out.
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