Henry Cavill Hypes Highlander Movie, Teases “Deep” Lore

Henry Cavill teases his Highlander reboot, hyping up the movie’s sword work and “deep” dive into the universe’s lore. The fantasy-leaning franchise kicked off in 1986 with the cult classic original movie, starring Christopher Lambert as a sword-wielding immortal being trained by a flamboyant Sean Connery. The Highlander universe then expanded through three theatrical sequels, a TV series followed by its own spinoff and TV movie, plus various animated works. Highlander is now set for a reboot, starring Cavill as the sword-swinging immortal, with Chad Stahelski in the director’s chair.

With the Highlander reboot still in an early phase of production, Cavill himself addressed the highly-anticipated fantasy-action film in a CinemaCon appearance at which Screen Rant was present, teasing the movie’s sword play while promising a deeper dive into the universe’s lore. Check out his remarks below:

I’m a lover of the original movies, for better or for worse. And it’s one of those things where, reading the script for the first time, I wasn’t quite too sure where they were going to go with it. But my goodness me, what we are doing with this is, they just touched on the lore in the first few movies. We are going deep into the meaning of these characters, and their various trials and tribulations. And so, if you thought you’d seen me do sword work before, you haven’t seen anything yet, I promise you that.

The Highlander Reboot Should Ditch Canon And Establish Its Own Lore

Cavill may speak of the “lore” of the Highlander universe, but in truth, the mythology outlined in the original movies and TV show is so wildly inconsistent that the reboot would do well to discard it altogether and start afresh. Highlander lore indeed was broken early on, when the first sequel film, Highlander II: The Quickening, introduced an alien origin story so laughable, the third film completely tossed it out.

Highlander reboot director Stahelski is indeed aware of the problems with the franchise’s mythology. Speaking to Screen Rant last year, the filmmaker discussed wanting to honor the original movies, while being completely honest about how disappointing those movies often were:

If you’re a fan at all, you know about the TV shows and the mythology there, the things that worked in the feature aspect of the franchise, what didn’t. I would like to think that it has — I guess, I hope I’m bringing to it the realization of the potential that we all see in that franchise. Now, we probably don’t love all the other ancillary stuff that’s come out of it, but we love the potential of it. There isn’t an episode of the TV show that I didn’t watch hoping for more or wanting more. That’s not to say they did a good or bad job, just that I want more.

The truth about the Highlander franchise is that it started with a great premise – immortal warriors battling each other over the centuries – but never came close to fully realizing its potential. Cavill and Stahelski are in position to go back to the original Highlander idea, but use it to build out their own new mythology, keeping the handful of good things introduced in the original movies, while tossing out what doesn’t work.

Highlander (Reboot)

Highlander is a reboot of the 1986 movie that starred Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery. The reboot is directed by Chad Stahelski and stars Henry Cavill as Connor MacLeod.