Henry Cavill And John Wick Director Team Up For Highlander Reboot

Henry Cavill will be wearing a kilt and showing off his sword-fighting skills in his next big project.

The Witcher star, 38, is set to star in the reboot of the 1986 classic action-adventure Highlander, with John Wick director Chad Stahelski helming.

In the original Highlander, Christopher Lambert plays Connor MacLeod, a 16th century Scottish warrior (yes, a French playing a Scot — it’s one of the movie’s endearing oddities) who learns that from Sean Connery’s Egyptian (don’t ask) mentor Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez (er, that’s Spanish…oh, never mind) that they are immortals, hunting down one another (by decapitation) and absorbing their power known as The Quickening.

The movie — with its ‘There can only be one’ catchphrase and a soundtrack featuring Queen songs (‘Who Wants To Live Forever') — was initially a box-office turkey but it did beaucoup business on home video. It later spawned four sequels — including 2000’s Highlander: Endgame, co-starring Donnie Yen — one TV series starring Adrian Paul (as Connor’s cousin Duncan) and an animated series.

“Being not shy with swords, and having a director as talented as Chad Stahelski at the helm, this is an opportunity like no other. Deep diving into franchise storytelling with all the tools at our disposal, is going to make this an adventure I (and hopefully all of you) shall never forget.”

And Cavill has already started his research. In his post, he also shared a photo of two books about kilts and Highland soldiers during WWI, a bottle of whiskey, and a sgian-dubh, a small single-edged knife worn by Scottish highlanders in full dress.

He added, “And as you can see from the swipe, I've lately been dipping into some of my Scottish heritage, and inadvertently getting my base line research underway!”

Over the years, there’s been talk of a Highlander reboot with directors including Justin Lin and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later), and stars including Ryan Reynolds and Dave Bautista attached to it at various points.

Cavill has recently finished filming season 2 of The Witcher and has signed on for the sequel to Netflix’s Enola Holmes where he will reprise the role of Sherlock Holmes, the brother of Brown’s teenage detective.

Photos: TPG News/Click Photos