Highlander reboot?

[thatguy]

There can only be one!

—tg

https://deadline.com/2021/05/henry-cavil...234761916/

Henry Cavill To Star in Lionsgate’s ‘Highlander’ Reboot From Chad Stahelski
[color=var(--body-font-color)]Justin Kroll[/color]
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65)][/color]
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65)]Henry Cavill, left, and 'Highlander' with Christopher Lambert Clay Enos; Everett Collection[/color]
EXCLUSIVE: In the world of the Highlander films, there can be only one and Henry Cavill has his eyes on the title. Sources tell Deadline that the Man of Steel star is in talks for one of the lead roles in Lionsgate’s reboot of Highlander with John Wick director Chad Stahelskihelming. Kerry Williamson penned the script.
Neal H. Moritz and Josh Davis are producing the project. Amanda Lewis, Patrick Wachsberger and Gregory Widen will exec produce. Peter Davis, the original producer of the first film, was also on board to produce before his death this past February.
The original 1986 Highlander pic starred Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery and Clancy Brown as immortal beings, hunting down one another and collecting more power. The film — with its “There can be only one” catchphrase — spawned four sequels and three television series including the popular USA series starring Adrian Paul.
The plot of this latest take is unknown, as is whether Cavill will be playing a brand new character to the universe or a character from previous projects. The reboot has been gestating for a while with everyone from Ryan Reynolds to Justin Lin involved at some point, but sources say these latest pieces coming together put this film into position to get into production.
For Cavill, it gives him yet another franchise with a large fanbase after starring roles in major tentpoles like Man of Steel and Mission: Impossible – Fallout. He is currently filming the second season of Netflix’s The Witcher following its record-breaking first season. He is also set to return as Sherlock Holmes in the sequel to Netflix’s Enola Holmes with Millie Bobby Brown returning in the title role.
Cavill is repped by WME and The Garcia Companies.

[Drunk Monk]

Time for DM to Greg tg...

http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/show...der-reboot

[Greg]

Put me in the don't care camp. Didn't think the first one was all that great and has wondered about the love for the movie ever since.

[Drunk Monk]

Blasphemer!

It had sword fights. And Sean! Not to mention THE KURGEN!!! The original was a classic!

What catches my attention is Stahelski who has been delivering top notch action. Given Cavill's work in The Witcher, this could work.

[Greg]

It also had Christopher Lambert.

[Drunk Monk]

A DM Highlander tale

So I tabled at a Highlander convention in a hotel on Geary in SF. I want to say that was in the early 90s when the TV show was hot. Adrian Paul, who played Duncan MacLeod, was an avid Kung Fu practitioner and the con wanted a Kung Fu demo at his behest. Lam Kwoon was hired and I haggled out a table there. 

Our 'store' didn't have a lot to offer given that Highlander fans weren't really into KF, but I had packed a big box of VHS and a TV because I felt I could sling a lot of HK wuxia flicks. There were a lot of hot ones around that time (they're all dated now) and I was working for HK Film Magazine so I was very on top of that genre. I knew if I could show some of those, I was sure to sell some. Unbeknownst to me, Lynn, Sifu's X, decided to repack my table offerings. She took out the TV and replaced it with yixing tea pots - a full freaking box of fragile pots. I was furious. Not only did I have to pack those damn pots in and out, I didn't sell a single one. Why would I? I still managed to sell a puny amount of VHS tapes, but that was it. It was one of many clashes Lynn and I had over the years. 

I demoed Shaolin cane. 

I remember this extremely nerdy fanboy who kept hanging around our table chatting because we were trapped. He wore an overcoat and kept flashing us with his sword (a cavalry sabre if memory serves). There was also one woman in a barbarian armor bikini that was porn star eye-catching - early cosplay.  

I also remember one of the students who came out to demo left his brand new VHS camcorder in his car in plain sight. It was stolen, of course. I felt really bad about that. 

I don't remember if the cfs participated but I think they might have, given that we were all more connected into the con community.

[thatguy]

I just like the scene transitions, they stood out to me as clever at the time.

Also, didn't Queen do the soundtrack? 

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

I rewatched it a few years ago. The sword fights were much weaker than I remembered. It was really all about the Kurgen.

[thatguy]

Rabbit-holing while looking for some example transitions and came across these things I didn't know:

Director Russell Mulcahy started off his career making music videos, including the very first MTV outing, The Buggles’ Video Killed the Radio Star. He also directed many videos for Duran Duran, including Hungry Like the Wolf, The Wild Boys, Is There Something I Should Know, Save a Prayer, The Reflex, Rio and Planet Earth, Spandau Ballet’s True and The Vapors’ Turning Japanese.

To create the sparks when swords clashed, the actors were hooked up to car batteries (down by their feet). The wires ran up their arm sleeves—one negative and one positive—when the swords touched, voila! Because the sword handles would get hot and the actors received shocks, only so many takes could be completed.

Mulcahy said filming the stag “was a nightmare.” Because at the time of filming all stags had lost their horns, it was decided to glue on antlers. A veteranarian put the animal to sleep, the horns were glued on and then, they had to wait for it to awaken; once it did, all the deer wanted to do was shake off the antlers. During filming, the stag ran away and never came back. It was found later, 25 miles away and without the horns. Some of the stag scene (standing in water) is National Geographic stock footage.

https://www.pajiba.com/seriously_random_...ink-so.php

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

Heard those. 

Did you know that Highlander was inspired by The Duellists? 

And The Duellists, well, that was inspired by DM & the Yeti.

[Greg]

Check your levels. I think your timeline is messed up again.

[Drunk Monk]

From wiki

Gregory Widen wrote the script for Highlander, as a class assignment while he was an undergraduate in the screenwriting program at UCLA.[9] Widen also used Ridley Scott's 1977 film The Duellists as inspiration for his story.

The Duellists would mark the feature film debut of Ridley Scott who had previously worked making TV commercials.[4] Its visual style was influenced by tales Scott heard of the epic battles between DM & the Yeti when they were youngsters. 

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

From wiki

Gregory Widen wrote the script for Highlander, as a class assignment while he was an undergraduate in the screenwriting program at UCLA.[9] Widen also used Ridley Scott's 1977 film The Duellists as inspiration for his story.

The Duellists would mark the feature film debut of Ridley Scott who had previously worked making TV commercials.[4] Its visual style was influenced by tales Scott heard of the epic battles between DM & the Yeti when they were youngsters. 

Truth.

I'll be in my trailer.

[cranefly]

A DM Highlander tale

So I tabled at a Highlander convention in a hotel on Geary in SF. I want to say that was in the early 90s when the TV show was hot. Adrian Paul, who played Duncan MacLeod, was an avid Kung Fu practitioner and the con wanted a Kung Fu demo at his behest. Lam Kwoon was hired and I haggled out a table there. 
.
.
.
I don't remember if the cfs participated but I think they might have, given that we were all more connected into the con community.

I asked LCF about this.  She remembers a media convention in SF, not necessarily Highlander-focused, but with Adrian Paul as guest.  She believes she and Chet did the bat'leth set, which Chet created.  I don't remember if I was there.  At one of these affairs I had to man the Lam Kwoon table while someone took a break.  While covering, a nice older Asian gentleman looked over Wing Lam's handmade swords.  I asked if he was interested in any of them.  He proceeded to tell me that years before he had bought a hand-made weapon from Wing Lam, but it had quickly come apart.  He wasn't really berating Wing Lam, just explaining why he was reluctant to buy one of these hand-made swords.  I really didn't have a response.  And to this day I wonder if the weapon he bought was early in Wing Lam's weapons-making learning curve.  But that incident stuck with me, a mystery.  I don't know if this happened at the SF convention or another place and time.

[Drunk Monk]

I'm guessing that was the same event because of Adrian. I don't remember Chet & LCF doing the bat'leth set but that may well have happened. I do remember meeting Adrian with Chet, so I'm sure he was there. And in my mind, it was definitely a Highlander con.

As for the faulty WLE weapon, that story seems suspect. Sifu epoxied his weapons together. It's a knife making thing, not a sword making thing. He never really learned sword making. He learned knife making from books, and it's not the same. That's one of the reasons that Sifu's swords don't ring. The epoxy stifles any resonance so they just make flat clacking sounds. That being said, few antique Chinese swords ring - that's more of a Euro sword thing (every sword we made at The Armoury had to pass a ring test - it's all about proper fitting). Nevertheless, Chinese swords are traditionally peened, not epoxied. I had many discussions with him about that. That being said, I can't imagine one of Sifu's swords ever coming apart. He epoxied the crap out of them. It's a short cut - epoxy fills the gaps of a sloppy fit - and it makes it nearly impossible to disassemble, which is a fundamental necessity with real swords because stuff breaks in combat.