Russell Crowe reunites with Superman son Henry Cavill for reboot of another beloved action franchise
Russell Crowe is reuniting onscreen with Henry Cavill, more than a decade after they acted with each other in the Superman film Man of Steel.
The 2013 superhero movie starred Henry in the lead role and Russell as his biological father Jor-El, who saves his son's life just before losing his own.
Now, fans will be able to see them back onscreen in a remake of the 1986 action fantasy picture Highlander, which launched a franchise of the same name.
In the original Highlander, Christopher Lambert played Connor MacLeod, a 16th century Scottish warrior who discovers he is immortal unless his head is severed.
He gets initiated into the secret world of immortals by the virtuoso swordsman Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez, memorably portrayed by Sean Connery.
A reboot starring Henry as MacLeod was announced in 2021, and now, after years of development, Russell has been cast as Ramírez, according to Variety.
The original Highlander emerged as a roaring success in 1986, leading to the 1991 sequel Highlander II: The Quickening, which flopped disastrously.
However the series staggered on for the 1994 release Highlander III: The Sorcerer, a direct follow-up of the first film as if the events of the second never happened.
There was also a TV series from 1992 to 1998, followed by the 2000 film Highlander: Endgame, which was a sequel to the show rather than to the previous movies.
In 2021 it emerged that the original movie was being remade with Henry in the lead, back when he was still starring as Geralt of Riva on the Netflix medieval fantasy series The Witcher, before his departure and replacement by Liam Hemsworth.
The new film will be directed by Chad Stahelski, who helmed all the John Wick movies, and will have a script by Michael Finch, who co- wrote the fourth John Wick picture.
Russell first met Henry long before they ever worked together, back when the latter was a teenager at boarding school in the English countryside.
The encounter took place when Russell was filming his 2000 drama Proof of Life, starring him and Meg Ryan, at the Stowe School - where Henry was a student along with Russell's onscreen son Merlin Hanbury-Tenison.
Russell recalled that 'during a break in the shooting,' he caught sight of a rugby union game and noticed 'one kid on that field who was very fluid and in control.'
The teenager 'came over to have a chat, but all his questions were about acting, and there was just this smile in his eyes but there was something dead serious behind that smile,' Russell said on The Graham Norton Show in 2013.
'So instead of not answering the questions or whatever - 'cause you get asked these questions a hundred thousand times - I told him the truth in the brief moment that I had with him, and put it in front of him that it's a challenge that's up to him. Nobody's gonna give it to you,' Russell remembered.
'A couple of days later, I was putting a package together for the kid who'd played my son, because I figured the greatest thing if you're at boarding school must be unexpected mail, and I thought: "I'll put one together for that other bloke," and I'd remembered his name because he'd been very clear when he said it,' he shared.
His note to Henry was the saying: 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,' which Russell interpreted as meaning: 'If you want it, you go and get it.'
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