Henry Cavill's Highlander reboot gets new details as director explains how he convinced The Witcher star to sign up

Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia holding a sword during the Netflix fantasy series, The Witcher.
(Image credit: Netflix)

Highlander reboot director Chad Stahelski has revealed some new details about the movie's plot – and how he convinced leading man Henry Cavill to join the project.

"We're bringing it forward from the early 1500s in the Highlands to the beyond present-day New York and Hong Kong, and seeing how it goes," Stahelski, who's best known for helming the John Wick movies, told The Direct. "There's big opportunity for action. There's a chance to play a character that not a lot of people get to play. And it's a bit of a love story, but not how you think. On John Wick, I learned a lot on how to bend the storytelling a little."

He added that he convinced Cavill to come on board with the intensity and scope of the character. "My selling point was, to [Cavill], look, you've got a guy that's been alive for over 500 years. He's the last person in the world that wanted to be in this situation. So you get to cover quite a broad spread of a character arc there. And you get to experience someone that's trained over 500 years and sort of played [with many types of] martial arts."

The original Highlander movie was released in 1986 and starred Christopher Lambert as immortal warrior Connor MacLeod, who was born in 16th Century Scotland but now works as an antique in '80s New York. Filming on the reboot is due to start in early 2025.

The Highlander reboot doesn't have a release date yet. While we wait for more updates, check out our guide to the other best upcoming movies on the way.

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Entertainment Writer

I’m an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering everything film and TV-related across the Total Film and SFX sections. I help bring you all the latest news and also the occasional feature too. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism.