Henry Cavill has been a hot topic of discussion in the last 12 months as his tenure playing Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher came to an end not long after he dropped the cape and said goodbye to Superman. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been busy.
There are several projects in their pre-production phase that Cavill is attached to star, the biggest of which being a Warhammer 40K show pitched by the actor alongside Games Workshop. Right now that series is in limbo, as Amazon PrimeVideo and Games Workshop hope to come to an agreement before December, but in the meantime, there’s another action hero that Cavill will play, and the pitch that sold him on the part was quite unique.
Cavill is set to star in the upcoming reboot of 1986’s action fantasy hit Highlander. This story about an immortal swordsman will be handled by John Wick director Chad Stahelski, and during an interview with The Direct he explained it was being 500 years old that sold Cavill on the part.
“My selling point was, to [Henry Cavill], look, you’ve got a guy that’s been alive for over 500 years. He’s the last person in the world that wanted to be in this situation. So you get to cover quite a broad spread of a character arc there. And you get to experience someone that’s trained over 500 years and sort of played [with many types of] martial arts…”
Being a 500-year-old martial artist might be new ground for the star to break, but he’s far from new to being in intense action sequences.
The reboot of Highlander will take place in the “beyond present-day” set between New York and Hong Kong. In the original 1986 movie, the story was set between two timelines, the present and the early 1500s showcasing the battle between immortal warriors. This reboot will take aspects of the original movie and its TV series to bring together something fresh for audiences that could potentially revive the franchise. Stahelski hopes that the movie will begin shooting before Spring of 2025, and as you might expect there’s no release date attached yet.
When it was first released Highlander was not a great success. However, while its box office take was lackluster, later it would go on to become a cult classic and inspire plenty of spin-off material — and eventually this reboot.
While none of the cast members have been revealed outside of Cavill, we do know who is writing the movie, and that includes Ryan J. Condal known for his work on House of the Dragon, Michael Finch who wrote on John Wick: Chapter 4, and Resident Evil writer Kerry Williamson. Expect to see more of the cast and team for this movie revealed in the coming months as we get closer to filming.
Fans might be upset that they won’t be seeing Cavill in his iconic Superman suit, or wielding a sword in The Witcher, but the good news is that you’ve still got plenty of fantasy flicks with the star on the horizon.