Lionsgate’s planned remake of the 1986 cult classic Highlander took a major step forward back in November when the studio tapped John Wick director Chad Stahelski to helm the long-gestating reboot, and the filmmaker has been chatting to Collider about the project during a promotional interview for his new film John Wick: Chapter 2.
“If you go back and watch the original Highlander, whether the quality holds up or not or the filmmaking process holds up, there are things about that movie beneath just the shots and the lighting, there’s a mythology there, for some reason, it hooks us,” said Stahelski. “We love that world. everybody loves the immortal realm. Everybody loves the code — There can be only one. There’s something about it that hooks you, hooks me, hooks all the fanboys about it. I went so far as I know every episode of all six seasons, plus the seventh season if you count Raven as a series, plus the novels, there’s something about the world that’s hooking.”
Stahelski went on to reveal that he plans to draw on the entire Highlander mythology, and is looking at creating a trilogy of movies based around the immortals and their quest for The Prize.
“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 to 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. 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. 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 us 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. 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.”
Head on over to Collider for the rest of the interview, and look for John Wick: Chapter 2 in cinemas on February 10th in the US and on February 17th in the UK.
Originally published February 5, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
