Henry Cavill in Highlander Reboot?

According to news outlet Deadline, Henry Cavill of The Witcher and Man of Steel fame is in talks to star in the reboot of the action/fantasy franchise Highlander.  The original film featured Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod, a 450 year old Immortal born in the Highlands of Scotland.  The film also featured the late Sean Connery as Ramirez, Connor’s friend and mentor, and Clancy Brown as the film’s main villain, the monstrous Kurgan.  These Immortals are compelled to battle each other until only one remains.  An Immortal can only die by decapitation.  The victor then takes the other’s power and knowledge by a process called the Quickening.  Connor is forced to fight for his survival against the Kurgan, because in the end, there can be only one.  The original Highlander was released back in 1986.  It flopped big time in the United States, because people were not really expecting fantasy sword-fighting in modern times.  It wasn’t something that people in the States caught into, at least not initially.  It did better overseas.  But it found its audience on home video, as a lot of cult classics do.  Highlander is one of the most unique and interesting fantasy films ever made.  The concept is awesome and the execution was a lot better than expected.  The cast was pitch-perfect, although Mr. Lambert’s Scottish accent was awful.  Clancy Brown stole the show as the Kurgan.  He was huge and intimidating.  He was one of the best villains ever written.  The music in the film was a combination of Michael Kamen’s powerful score and Queen’s rock music.  It was a perfect combination.

It was pretty much a “one and done” kind of movie.  I mean, “There can be only one” doesn’t leave a lot of room for interpretation.  At least, it shouldn’t.  However, we ended up with not just one or two sequels, but 4 live-action sequels, one animated movie, two live-action TV series with one being a spin-off, and one animated series.  Highlander’s popularity was there, but with the exception of Highlander: Endgame, the sequels sucked.  Highlander II was heavy-handed in its environmental message and made the Immortals aliens from the planet Zeist.  Highlander: The Final Dimension was pretty much a carbon copy of the original film with Mario Van Peebles ripping off the Kurgan.  Highlander: The Source was Adrian Paul’s first solo movie as Duncan MacLeod, and it went straight to the Sci-Fi Channel.  For good reason, it’s an awful movie.  Highlander: Endgame was more of a bridge between the movies and Adrian Paul’s TV show.  It actually worked, mostly.  But it still boggles the mind that somebody thought that making a sequel to a movie where the tagline was “There can be only one” was a good idea.  The TV series worked pretty well, and went for a strong six seasons.

After Highlander: The Source failed to reignite the franchise back in 2007, there had been talks about doing a reboot of the franchise.  Lots of names had been rumored to have been attached to the project including Tom Cruise of all people.  For the most part, however, things had been relatively silent on the reboot front, until it was announced back in 2016 that John Wick director Chad Stahelski was brought on board by Lionsgate Studios to helm the project.  Great, we have an awesome director who knows how to do action movies.  The real question was who was going to be the main star of the film.  Again, a lot of rumors and speculation had circulated over the last 6 years.  There was a lot of fan-casting, but now it seems we may have a legitimate candidate for Highlander: Henry Cavill.  Who is he going to play?  Is he going to be a MacLeod or an entirely original character?  We have no idea at this point, it’s too early.  Truth is, is that Henry might not actually take the role, but what if he does?  Henry Cavill is a fantastic actor.  Most people are going to recognize him as Geralt of Rivia from the Netflix show, The Witcher.  Rightfully so, as he was outstanding in that role.  He was a fan of The Witcher books and video games, so he put in the work to become the monster hunter.  While I don’t think the show was perfect, Cavill carried it all the way.  He can obviously handle the sword-fighting and action, as well as the comedic and dramatic chops.  Seeing him in a Highlander movie would make a great deal of sense.

So, if Henry Cavill gets on board with this movie, how are the film-makers going to approach it?  They could do another “one-and-done” movie and be done with it, but I get the feeling that Lionsgate is going to want to try and go for multiple movies.  From this point on, things are going to be MY opinion on what I think should happen.  If this project gets off the ground with Stahelski and Cavill on board and Lionsgate wanting more than one movie, they need to approach the new film in a way that’s similar to the TV series.  The franchise would need multiple villains to behead, building up to one final climactic battle against the most evil and powerful of Immortals.  Basically, the first movie would have Cavill’s character(if he’s the hero)take one of the henchmen or lesser villains.  The second film would up the ante with some Immortals breaking the rules of The Game and Cavill taking THEM down.  The last movie would have finally have Cavill and whoever the main villain is, being the last two Immortals battle across multiple continents and time itself.  It needs to be epic.  The one other thing that really made the original film stand out were the flashbacks to Connor’s previous life centuries earlier.  That needs to be kept in with the new film/s.  Again, this is speculation and what I want to see, but it’s not necessarily going to happen that way.  To be truthful, the earliest that we would see the first film would probably be mid-to-late 2023 or early 2024.  There’s a lot of stuff they need to work out to get this thing right.  The last thing we need is another Highlander: The Source.  So, those are my thoughts on a potential new Highlander film and a possible casting of Henry Cavill.  I’m curious about this to be honest, but it’s going to be a long road.