John Wick’s Chad Stahelski still really wants to do a Highlander reboot

Two years ago it was announced that JOHN WICK director Chad Stahelski would be directing a reboot of the HIGHLANDER series. While there have been some developments since, news has been quiet on that front as the director has dug deep into the third JOHN WICK movie, due May 2019. But don’t worry, fans of kilts and swords, for Stahelski is still very into the idea of the new HIGHLANDER movie and is thinking about ways to revolutionize the series. More kilts! More swords!

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Stahelski was speaking with EW recently about the planned reboot, the last major news of which was back in March regarding the state of the script and the plan to start pre-production by the end of the year. We have about one week left to go in the year and haven’t heard anything more about the movie, but the director confirmed he still very much wants “to go in and do Highlander,” and spoke about how he wants to approach certain elements – e.g. sweet sword fighting.

“Right now, I’m very interested in doing the Highlander property. It’s scarily similar to John Wick. There’s a great mythology, it’s got an action-design challenge. What would a guy really be like after 500 years of practicing sword-work? I’m still a stunt guy at heart. You want to reinvent gunfights, how do you do it? You want to reinvent sword fighting, how do you do it? And that’s where we are at now. I love the first Highlander and I think I’m in a pretty good spot. The creative team, the producers and the studio that’s behind it have kind of said, ‘It’s yours to play with.’”

However, pulling a real Guillermo del Toro, the director his competing with his own schedule and has another movie on his docket – an adaptation of the book series “Sandman Slim” from author Richard Kadrey.

“I’m a huge fan of a property I’m involved in, and working on the script now, called Sandman Slim, which I f—ing really really like. It’s a (fantasy) book series by Richard Kadrey. We’re working on the script right now. So, between those two projects, I feel very fortunate.”

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It was late 2016 when news broke that Stahelski would do HIGHLANDER, and since then he says he wants to make a trilogy of movies based on the property, saying that he wants to “really expand the world,” and create a mythology that can lead into more chapters. For most of 2018, the director has been at work on JOHN WICK 3: PARABELLUM, so it's understandable that he wouldn't jump head-first into HIGHLANDER quite yet. But he seems adamant about getting it done, so maybe he will get to work on production sometime next year after WICK comes out. I can't say I'm excited for a reboot of HIGHLANDER, but if he brings the same kind of energy and world-building to that as he did WICK, I'll be there for it. 

JOHN WICK 3: PARABELLUM arrives May 17, 2019.