It’s safe to say that director Chad Stahelski‘s star is on the rise. With the cult hit John Wick and its highly anticipated (and reportedly awesome) sequel under his belt, it’s safe to say that the former stunt man is really making a name for himself in the world of action filmmaking. There’s a lot riding on his next projects, and it was reported last year that he would be taking on the reboot of Highlander, the 1986 camp classic that featured Sean Connery in a fancy jacket and spawned two sequels and a television series about an immortal Scottish swordsman.
The world of Highlander got a little insane as the franchise went on, bringing in aliens and spaceships alongside the Immortals. From the sounds of things, Stahelski is looking to narrow down the world while deepening the mythology, similar to the criminal underworld depicted in John Wick. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, laid out a bit of his plan.
“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 swordfighting, how do you do it? And that’s where we are at now… 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.”
Stahelski also explained that he wanted to bring more Immortals into the picture, even though the thing that most people remember about the film is “There can be only one!”
“I want to see Immortals. I’m invested in the Immortal world. I think that’s very important. My pitch initially was, ‘Look, I think there’s more here than I can fit in one movie. If I can crack the code of trying to string out the Gathering to three films, would you guys be interested?’ [They were] like, ‘If you can do it.’ Between me, and some of the conceptual people involved, we believe that we can. What, you met four Immortals on the first movie? 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!”
Can we bring Connery out of retirement too?
(Via Entertainment Weekly)
