Lionsgate and John Wick creator and director Chad Stahelski signed an overall deal that will see Stahelski continue to shepherd the John Wick franchise, but will also see him move forward on his long gestating Highlander plans.
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – JULY 22: (L-R) Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves speak onstage during “Collider”: Directors On Directing Panel At Comic-Con at San Diego Convention Center on July 22, 2022 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Lionsgate)
Lionsgate Motion Picture Group outgoing chair Joe Drake and chair Adam Fogelson announced, “This deal expands on the great creative relationship we already have in place on John Wick and extends it to our Highlander franchise.”
They added, “From the outset, Chad has been the creative force defining the world of Wick; as we continue to think about the future for that world, we want Chad, working together with Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee of Thunder Road, as our stewards guiding us and strategizing together at every step. This deal makes it official, and we look forward to his steady hand and creative input not just on the film he is making, but other stories that arise from it. He is a true visionary, and we are thrilled to have him in our corner.”
Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod in Highlander (1986), 20th Century Fox
READ: Netflix’s ‘The Witcher’ Casts Laurence Fishburne To Play A Race-Replaced Regis
Stahelski also shared, “I am pleased to be able to grow my relationship with Lionsgate in this new oversight role for the John Wick universe and its further expansion.”
“John Wick is so close to my heart and to be able to continue shepherding it will be a blast for me. I’m so happy to also be launching another franchise with Highlander, a world that is so rich with engaging stories to be told,” he said.
Keanu Reeves as John Wick and Donnie Yen as Caine in John Wick 4. Photo Credit: Murray Close
The Highlander reboot has been in the works for nearly a decade and it was announced that Henry Cavill as part of the project back in May 2021.
Stahelski has shared a number of details about his plans for Highlander over the years. Back in 2017, he informed Collider where they were on the script and shared his vision that they want the franchise to span across films and TV, “We’re currently doing a bit of work on the overall plot structure. When I came on board, they were trying to reinvent the single Highlander property. We’ve gone since back in and we would like to really expand the world, so we consider the same shortcomings don’t happen again that happened on the original project, meaning you have one great movie and four questionable followups.”
“We want to develop a property that can give us — and again it’s not about marketing, it’s not so much about the financials, it’s about how can we make a more mythological, chapter one, chapter two, what’s a great way to tell this story,” he said.
Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod in Highlander (1986), 20th Century Fox
Stahelski also detailed how he was taking inspiration from the Highlander TV series as well as Star Wars, “I think the TV series hit on a lot of great stuff wasn’t in the feature, between the watchers and all the different types of immortals. How do we get this into a feature mode before we dribble it into the TV world? Well, let’s restructure it in parts, let’s look at it like it was a TV show, let’s look at it like it was a high-end trilogy. How do we tell the story of the gathering, the quickenings, the immortals, and how do we really build this world out even more so than the original project?”
“That’s what we’re restructuring right now,” he said. “It’s taking all the good stuff that we had before I was involved in the project from the script; redeveloping the script to give us really good chapters one, two and three; and expanding the world.”
Highlander #1 Cover Art by Dave Dorman (2009), Dynamite Comics
READ: John Wick 4 Continues a Trend of Masculine, Pro-Paternal Movies Doing Well
As for Star Wars he said, “The vision we’re trying to get across and what we’re trying to develop, I equate very close to Star Wars. The first one is a very satisfying ending but it does leave the door open and that’s kind of how I see this. I would really like to expand it over three. I see the gathering happening over three.”
“It’s tricky don’t get me wrong, that’s why we’re still developing it,” he noted. “We want to be able to tell three complete stories that all kind of fit. I think the Star Wars trilogy, at least up to The Empire Strikes Back, is a good example of how we want to process it.”
Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod in Highlander (1986), 20th Century Fox
The director famous for his gunplay in the John Wick franchise shared how he wants to do something similar with Highlander albeit with swords, “If heads coming apart is an R, great. If heads coming apart is a PG, great. Ratings are second to what we’re going to do. Highlander, I think the action is — at least what’s in my head — is going to fall on a line, for sure.”
He elaborated, “We want to design it what we think is aesthetically cool, and so far I’ve met no resistance, they’re like, ‘Look, whatever you did with John Wick with the gun stuff, we want you to try and do with the sword stuff. We want you to make something cool and something unique, and something that’s going to make audiences say ‘Wow, I haven’t seen that before.’”
Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod in Highlander (1986), 20th Century Fox
Stahelski would share more details during an interview with Josh Horowitz telling him, “We’re looking to do our story– engages a lot of the same characters and stuff like that. But we’ve also brought in elements of all the TV shows, and we’re trying to do a bit of a prequel, a setup for the The Gathering. So we have room to grow the property.”
“If we got our s**t together and we pulled off the feature, like yeah, we have ideas for days about how to make the coolest characters and to make that an epic TV show. I just think that’s a rich, rich material. When you can pick any period in time, any nationality, any culture, any type of person, and make them an immortal that have to duel and deal with the burden of immortality that’s f***ing cool to me,” he concluded.
In November 2023, Stahelski shared more details confirming the film will “encapsulate everything you loved about the original with more.”
He told TheWrap, “We’re trying to encapsulate everything you loved about the original with more – meaning we want to ground it, we want it to be a great chance at world-building and mythology. But we still want to keep it fun.”
“It’s like the ‘Wick’ movies,” he said. “You want to experience this world, you want to believe it’s real. But it’s also five degrees off from reality. This is a movie with immortals running around chopping each others’ heads off. There’s a certain ridiculousness to it. It’s like the ‘Wick’s. We ride the tone. Everybody in the movie thinks its real. But we as an audience can get our heads around it – look, suspend disbelief. We’re trying to get you on board for this amazing journey with people who have lived hundreds of years. It’s a challenge. But I’m very excited.”
Stahelski also confirmed his upcoming film would feature music from Queen.
Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher (2023), Netflix
Deadline reported at the end of October the film will likely have a $100 million production and Lionsgate was aiming to have the film go into production sometime in 2024.
Are you looking forward to what Stahelski and Cavill have planned for Highlander?
NEXT: Games Workshop Announces Warhammer 40,000 Universe Officially Greenlit At Prime Video
[…] NEXT: Chad Stahelski Signs Overall Deal At Lionsgate That Will See ‘Highlander’ Reboot Starring Henry … […]
[…] READ: Chad Stahelski Signs Overall Deal At Lionsgate That Will See ‘Highlander’ Reboot Starring Henry … […]