After years of talk, Highlander is gathering pace. Amazon MGM Studios and United Artists are behind the reboot, being driven by John Wick director Chad Stahelski. It is a long-time passion project of his.
We know that Russell Crowe will be joining Henry Cavill. His role is presumed to be that of Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez, or similar. That role was famously played by Sean Connery in the original, delivering just 17 lines of dialogue, including his voiceovers in the credits. He also appeared for just 17 minutes of screentime, including montages, and was only on set for one week.
According to a report in Variety, Marisa Abela is set to join the cast. She received good notices for playing Amy Winehouse in the biopic of the late singer Back to Black. She has more recently won a BAFTA for her role in HBOs Industry, and won plaudits for her performance in Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag.
Her role may be the female lead in the current time period, who discovers the presence of immortals battling through the ages. The other possibility is Connor McLeod’s historical love interest.
It was a small role in the original, but pivotal in forming the lead character’s approach to his immortality. It also inspired the Queen song Who Wants To Live Forever that the band created for the soundtrack.
The original movie is a lean 111 minutes long. It would be possible to expand some of these roles if the run time was to veer more towards the modern blockbuster length.
