"I have something to say... It's better to burn out than to fade away!"
Chad Stahelski's Highlander reboot has found its villain, with Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy, Dune, Blade Runner 2049) in final talks to play the immortal barbarian known as The Kurgan, who was memorably brought to life by Clancy Brown in the '80s movie.
The Kurgan, or Victor Kruger as he goes by in modern times, is one of the world's oldest immortals, emerging as the nemesis of Connor MacLeod (Henry Cavill) after "killing" him on the battlefield in 1536. Bautista was actually circling this role back in 2015, for an earlier take on the property that was set to be helmed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan.
Russell Crowe is also on board as MacLeod's mentor and fellow immortal warrior, Ramirez, who was played by Sean Connery in the 1986 original. Industry actress Marisa Abela will play the female lead.
"My selling point was, to [Henry Cavill], look, you've got a guy that's been alive for over 500 years," Stahelski said in a recent interview. "He's the last person in the world that wanted to be in this situation. So you get to cover quite a broad spread of a character arc there. And you get to experience someone that's trained over 500 years and sort of played [with many types of] martial arts."
Michael Finch penned the script for the remake, with Scott Stuber and Nick Nesbitt on board as producers alongside Neal H. Moritz, Stahelski’s 87Eleven Entertainment, Josh Davis of Davis Panzer Productions, and Louise Rosner.
Plot details are still under wraps, but it sounds like this is going to be a fairly direct remake. At the very least, we expect it to stick to the basic premise of the original: A race of immortals do battle across time with the ultimate goal of emerging as the sole survivor (decapitation gets the job done) and claiming the prize of mortality. In the end, there can be only one.
The original Highlander spawned a series of inferior sequels and a TV show, which was mostly well-regarded by fans.
You can check out Brown's most memorable scene as The Kurgan below.
When the mystical Russell Nash (Christopher Lambert) kills a man in a sword fight in a New York City parking lot, he leaves a sliver of an ancient weapon lodged in a car in the process. After brilliant forensics specialist Brenda Wyatt (Roxanne Hart) recovers evidence of the mysterious weapon, she and her partner, Lt. Frank Moran (Alan North), embark on an investigation Of Nash that will land them in the middle of a dangerous, centuries-old feud between powerful immortals