Now that John Wick: Chapter 2 is out in the world, director Chad Stahelski is already focusing on his next big project, the planned reboot of the Highlander franchise. One aspect that he plans to delve into is an area where John Wick also excelled. Stahelski wants to dig deeper into the immortals and the world that they live in. The good news for fans of the franchise is he doesn't plan to use the "world" that was previously used.
When I came on, the property had already been developed for a couple of years and, as things happen in Hollywood, yeah, there was aliens, meteors, spaceships, uh, DNA mutations, terrorists. I mean, they'd tried to drag every plot into the Immortal world. My personal opinion, I don't want to see any of that. I'm not interested. I have seen other movies like that. I haven't seen the Immortal world.
Anybody who has had the unfortunate experience of watching Highlander 2: The Quickening likely immediately bristled at the word aliens. The sequel to the original film ran into significant financial problems and was eventually taken over by the insurance company. The film that was eventually released reimagined all of the immortals on Earth as aliens from another planet who had been transported to Earth centuries ago. If you're not familiar with it, don't become so, it's as bad as it sounds.
Chad Stahelski tells Entertainment Weekly that he doesn't want to drag in other concepts to explain the immortals, he wants to instead focus on them as characters and explore that world.
The original Highlander, likely for budget reasons, never really made much of a dive into the world. There were only a few immortal characters, and the movie gave no explanation as to how or why they all existed. One thing that Chad Stahelski's John Wick did remarkably well was create a world that exists inside another that feels rich with history and lore, even if not all of it is explained. If he can do the same with Highlander, while creating the unique action scenes that he wants to, we could have a quite fantastic film on our hands.
I think I can introduce you to an entire world of Immortals. Imagine the great characters you could have. I mean, it speaks for itself. So, that's the plan: to stay as true as we can to the original mythology, and just expand the world, and have fun within the world --- without bringing in interstellar travel!
While fans might be skeptical of rebooting Highlander in the first place, it certainly seems like Chad Stahelski is taking the right approach to the material. This could turn out to a pretty fantastic movie after all.
