By “John Wick” filmmaker Chad Stahelski says the upcoming reboot of the “Highlander” franchise is gearing up for a January start of shooting.
Appearing at the Mediterranean Film Festival in Malta, he spoke with Collider and confirmed filming gets underway right at the start of 2024 in Scotland and he’s doing the final location scout there this coming Monday.
The film’s star Henry Cavill, who is already in great physical condition and with years of sword training in him thanks to his other roles like “The Witcher,” is spending almost all of this year doing training for the film.
Stahelski says the approach to action prep for this film isn’t that different from “John Wick” in that they aim to get the specifics right, but then have fun with the fantasy of it:
“I’ll keep it to the core. Most audiences, I’ll use the gun analogy, most of what you know about gunfights or car chases, because most of us don’t get involved in gun fights, or car chases, or sword fights, we learn through movies.
And what those movies show you is about 95% bulls—. You don’t fight 50 guys with your bare hands and then walk away, but it’s fun. It’s wish fulfillment.
So John Wick, we know it’s a cartoon – I know it’s not – but we also have fun with it. But we do tactical reloads, we try to do fire manipulations, stuff like the professionals do, the military do. But then we have fun with it, you know? Sword work is very much the same.”
He also has to figure out how to show off sword fighting to a new generation in a way that feels fresh:
“How do you bring it all together and make it something. It’s not Princess Bride, it’s not Crouching Tiger, it’s not Master & Commander, it’s not Zorro. What’s this new look of action or sword fighting that people could be excited about? That keeps me up at night.”
The iconic 1986 original film dealt feuding immortals who battle across the centuries. The film will presumably be released sometime in 2026.
The post “Highlander” Reboot To Film In January appeared first on Dark Horizons.
