Heads up: Chad Stahelski‘s new Highlander movie just found its female lead. Marisa Abela, a BAFTA winner for her work on HBO‘s Industry, will be joining Henry Cavill in the reboot of the 1986 fantasy action classic. Variety reports that her character is being kept under wraps for now, but if the movie is following the original closely, there are two major female roles: Heather MacLeod, the main character’s wife from the 16th century who eventually grows old and dies while he remains immortal, and Brenda Wyatt, a forensic scientist who crosses paths with him as she investigates a series of mysterious beheadings.
Abela is a British actor who made her screen debut in 2008 in the thriller Man in a Box, before breaking out as an adult as Yasmin Kara-Hanani, an ambitious polyglot looking to climb the ranks at a prestigious investment bank in Industry. She also appeared in the 2023 hit Barbie as Teen Talk Barbie, as music icon Amy Winehouse in the 2024 biopic Back to Black, and as an intelligence operative in this year’s Steven Soderbergh spy thriller Black Bag. In addition to Cavill, she’ll be starring alongside Russell Crowe in Highlander, as Collider exclusively reported last month.
What Is the ‘Highlander’ Franchise About?
Created by screenwriter Gregory Widen (The Prophecy), Highlander centers around a group of humans from across history who, at the moment of their death, discover that they are immortal. They can only be killed by being decapitated; if beheaded by another immortal, an event known as a “Quickening” occurs, and the victor is granted the loser’s power. As they are gradually winnowed down, they come together for “The Gathering,” when the last survivor will be granted a mysterious prize.
The cinematic franchise stars Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert), a 16th-century Scottish warrior who discovers immortality is both a gift and a curse. He is inducted into the ways of immortals by Ramirez (Sean Connery), an immortal who originally hails from Ancient Egypt. Through his centuries-long life, however, MacLeod is haunted by the Kurgan (Clancy Brown), a merciless killer who longs to defeat him. With energetic direction from Russell Mulcahy and a soundtrack by Queen, the first film became a cult hit, and was followed by a series of less-successful sequels that presented conflicting origins for the immortals (in the much-derided Highlander II: The Quickening, they turn out to be aliens), as well as a long-running, well-regarded television series.
Stahelski‘s Highlander reboot has long been in the works. However, it is finally set to begin filming later this year, and is expected to be released in 2027 or 2028. Chad Stahelski‘s Highlander reboot is in development, but no concrete release date has yet been announced.
via Collider