Chad Stahelski, director of the John Wick films, has been attached to a potential Highlander reboot since 2016, but we’ve heard very little on the project over the years.
Now, ahead of the release of John Wick: Chapter 3, Stahelski has offered an update: He thinks his planned movie reboot of Highlander could morph into a TV show instead.
The original Highlander starred Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod, an immortal warrior who has spent centuries battling with members of his own kind in hopes of claiming the mysterious Prize, which is granted to the last immortal standing. While the film wasn’t a success in America, it did great business overseas thanks to its inventive mythology, colorful action scenes and the soundtrack by Queen.
Highlander spawned six movies, three TV shows, comic books, video games, and more. In short, there’s a lot of mythology surrounding this goofy story about immortal sword-fighters. With the way Hollywood operates, it’s surprising it’s taken so long to get a Highlander reboot off the ground. After all: established properties sell! Unless they don’t!
A remake of Highlander has been stuck in development hell for some time, with Ryan Reynolds once attached as star. Now current director Chad Stahelski has revealed to Collider his ambitious plans for the project may not fit into a movie.
It’s a good property. It’s got a lot of potential. We’re just trying to figure out the best way not to f*** it up. Not to try and fit it into a 1 hour, 45-minute movie, which, when your pitch is, ‘There can be only one,’ and in your first movie you kill everybody but the one, sequels have a problem of happening. So we’re trying to design in a way that gives us a little more lead in, a little more time with the mythology and see some of the best characters.
To that end, he feels a new Highlander TV show could be a better fit.
Stahelski, who is attached to direct, has been taking his time, making sure he gets everything just right.
That’s commendable. It’s good to know Stahelski cares enough to approach his work like this. The director also added:
“We’re trying to design in a way that gives us a little more lead in, a little more time with the mythology and see some of the best characters. They did seven seasons of TV, and even though the TV show may not hold up today, the idea of it and the characters they brought in were super cool. So we’re trying to devise a methodology that leads up to The Quickening. You just don’t end with a one-on-one battle in New York, cut off a guy’s head, and that’s it. We want to do this in such a way that it becomes more of a series whether it’s short form or long form that would let us explore that in the best way. I have a huge, heartfelt love and respect for the project, so we’re trying to find the best way to do it to give fans what they want.”
The first Highlander was made with no sequels in mind, which is why it ends on such a definite note. While a trilogy of movies would allow the filmmakers to plan a complete story arc, there’s also no guarantee of sequels being made. A season of a TV show, on the other hand, would allow time to flesh out the characters and mythology. Stahelski has also stated he wants to reinvent cinematic sword fighting, just like he did with gunplay in the John Wick movies. Since he has a lead character with over five centuries of fighting experience, that should allow for some creative action scenes.
Hopefully this is all good news for fans. Stahelski is determined to nail this down, no matter what. In the meantime, we can look forward to John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, due out May 17.
(Excerpts) Read More: SlashFilm.com and ScreenRant.com