It’s learned that Henry Cavill’s Highlander is now at Amazon and joins the actor’s other projects at the studio including the live-action Voltron movie and the Warhammer series.
What are the details?
The details revealed by Deadline offer up former Netflix film head Scott Stuber, who now runs the United Artists label, a film production and distribution company owned by Amazon MGM Studios, is in final negotiations to secure rights to the Highlander movie.
As previously announced, Henry Cavill will star and John Wick’s Chad Stahelski is directing. The script is also by John Wick: Chapter 4‘s Michael Finch.
Lionsgate has previously been developing Highlander but the report adds United Artists has secured full rights.
Amazon has a better vision
United Artists’ Scott Stuber and Nick Nesbitt are producing, alongside Neal H. Moritz and 87Eleven Entertainment, which is Stahelski’s production banner. Joshua Davis of Davis Panzer is also producing.
According to the report the reason for the change from Lionsgate to Amazon is because “Stahelski’s vision for the film fit better into the Amazon model but added its a big win for all parties.”
As previously mentioned, Henry Cavill already being at Amazon with those two projects certainly helped things. Interestingly enough, the news follows the exit of Jennifer Salke as head of Amazon Studios. There’s murmuring that Amazon got rid of Salke because of her feminist agenda and actually fired her.
Henry Cavill Stars As Centuries-Old Warrior
Chad Stahelski previously talked up his Highlander movie offering it will be a big action film.
“… And 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. 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… another kind of myth.”
500 years of experience
Stahelski also teased how big of a character the Highlander will be with 500 years worth of experience:
“My selling point was, to [Henry 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…”
Release info
Highlander has no release date. It’s expected to start filming in Scotland.
