Audiences were introduced to the fantastical mythology of nearly immortal warriors waging battle with swords in 1986’s Highlander, which earned multiple sequels, TV series, books, comics, video games, and card games, all of which proved the powerful potential of that world, but star of that original film Clancy Brown doesn’t see himself returning to the franchise, despite his enjoyment of the experience. John Wick director Chad Stahelski has been working on a reboot of the film for years, yet there have been no official updates on when that project would move forward, but we shouldn’t expect to see Brown appear in any capacity whenever it starts to take shape. Fans can currently see Brown in The Mortuary Collection, now streaming on Shudder.
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“Oh, no. My character’s dead. He got his head cut off. That’s not happening anymore,” Brown recently shared with ComicBook.com about a possible return. “I’m looking forward to the reboot. I hope it gets done. I can’t wait. I would love to see it, but I don’t have any aspirations to be part of that franchise.”
He added, “It was of its time. There’s no reason for me to [return], I did my time. I did my bit. It’s time for other people to have fun with it.”
With Stahelski having spent years talking about the project, it’s unknown what fans could expect from the reboot, with Stahelski even having admitted that he would consider approaching the project as a TV series instead of a feature film.
“We’re trying to get it done. Anyone who knows anything about the property knows it has a lot of meat to it. It’s a good property. It’s got a lot of potential,” Stahelski detailed with Collider back in 2019. “We’re just trying to figure out the best way not to f-ck it up. Not to try and fit it into a one hour, 45-minute movie, which, when your pitch is, ‘There can be only one,’ and in your first movie you kill everybody but the one, sequels have a problem of happening. So we’re trying to design in a way that gives us a little more lead in, a little more time with the mythology and see some of the best characters.”
He continued, “They did seven seasons of TV, and even though the TV show may not hold up today, the idea of it and the characters they brought in were super cool. So we’re trying to devise a methodology that leads up to The Quickening. You just don’t end with a one-on-one battle in New York, cut off a guy’s head, and that’s it. We want to do this in such a way that it becomes more of a series whether it’s short form or long form that would let us explore that in the best way. I have a huge, heartfelt love and respect for the project, so we’re trying to find the best way to do it to give fans what they want.”
The Mortuary Collection follows as a young woman (Caitlin Fisher) applies for a job at a decrepit old mortuary, only for the eerie mortician (Brown) that lives there to treat her to several tales of madness, macabre, and monsters from the many books he keeps filled with morbid stories. But things take a turn when she realizes the final anecdote just so happens to be her own story.
You can check out The Mortuary Collection on Shudder now. Stay tuned for details on the future of the Highlander reboot.
Are you disappointed that Brown won’t be returning? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror
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