There has been a planned Highlander reboot in development hell for so long that is has been easy to believe that it may never actually happen. But the most recent iteration of the reboot, which is set to see Highlander directed by John Wick’s Chad Stahelski and to star actor Henry Cavill, has recently taken some legit steps forward. Now Henry Cavill has started to talk about the film, for really the first time. And he’s getting excited.
Cavill himself hasn’t spoken much publicly about the Highlander franchise but with the actor doing the press rounds ahead of the Argylle release date, he’s being asked about the film. While Cavill certainly isn’t revealing a great deal about what we’re going to see in Highlander, he is talking about what he expects to be a very long training process, and he’s getting me psyched about the new movie.
What Henry Cavill Has Said About Training For Highlander
We know that Lionsgate is currently planning for a Highlander release date sometime in 2026, but while that might indicate that the production wheels won’t be spinning up too soon, Henry Cavill recently told Collider that he expects to begin training for the movie very soon. The reason that training is set to begin so early is apparently that the training process is going to take quite a bit of time. The actor said…
The training is about to begin in earnest. It'll be a very long training process, and I'm very excited to get into it. There's only so much I can tell you at the moment. I want to keep everything under wraps for as long as possible.
Henry Cavill has had significant experience swinging a sword after three seasons on The Witcher so on the one hand, you might not think he would need to train quite as much for a movie like Highlander. But we’ve seen the work that Keanu Reeves has done to get ready for the John Wick movies, and he seems to put just as much work in for the sequels. So having done it all before doesn’t necessarily make it easier later.
There is a strong expectation that Highlander is going to be “John Wick with Swords” and that likely means that while Cavill has done swordwork before, he may need to learn it all over again to make it work in a Chad Stahelski-style fight sequence.
Cavill Promises Highlander will be “A Serious Ride.”
Highlander is an interesting franchise because it’s one that has built a lot of fans, despite the fact that, even those fans will admit that a lot of the existing franchise isn’t that great. Director Chad Stahelski has celebrated the potential of Highlander to be great, and he’s right. A Highlander reboot is a great idea specifically because it can be greatly improved with a second chance.
What we’ll actually get with the new Highlander is anybody’s guess. Henry Cavill isn’t revealing any details yet, but when asked what we should expect from the movie by Comicbook.com, the actor said…
I'm not going to answer that just yet. There's a lot of work to be done yet on my part. It's going to be a serious ride, I'll tell you that much.
As one of those Highlander fans who has always wanted to see the franchise be more than it was, this is exciting. Stahelski is a self-professed Highlander fan and it sounds like Cavill is as well. We may still have to wait quite some time to see what the new Highlander is, but it looks to be in good hands.
