Henry Cavill has offered an exciting update concerning his role in the upcoming Highlander reboot. Set to be helmed by John Wick director Chad Stahelski, development on the long-gestating project dates as far back as 2008, when Lionsgate subsidiary Summit Entertainment first acquired the rights to the franchise. Working from a script penned by John Wick: Chapter 4 scribe Mike Finch, Stahelski’s Highlander movie is expected to be the first installment in a continuing franchise set in the world of the Scottish warrior Connor McLeod and his fellow immortal swordsmen.

Speaking with Collider while promoting his latest movie Argylle, Cavill revealed that his training for the new Highlander movie “is about to begin in earnest.” While the actor stopped short of revealing anything about the reboot’s plot and take on the iconic property, he did suggest he was “very excited to get into it.” Check out his comments below:

“The training is about to begin in earnest. It’ll be a very long training process, and I’m very excited to get into it. There’s only so much I can tell you at the moment. I want to keep everything under wraps for as long as possible.”

Why Cavill’s Highlander Reboot Will Not Just Be A Straight Remake

The Kurgan killing someone in Highlander

Despite a lackluster box office run and largely falling flat with US audiences at the time of its release, the original Highlander movie would later be considered a much-beloved cult classic. While some of the franchise’s later sequels would ultimately fail to live up to the appeal of the original 1986 movie, the property also enjoyed a second resurgence off the back of the 1992 spinoff show starring Adrian Paul. Running for six seasons, Highlander: The Series also paved the way for its own short-lived spinoff Highlander: The Raven, and two movies set in its own established continuity.

A promo image of Highlander featuring Sean Connery and Christopher Lambert standing back to back

Highlander is a classic fantasy movie but many of the sequels left something to be desired; here’s every live-action Highlander movie ranked.

With this in mind, audiences should not expect Cavill’s Highlander reboot to be a simple beat-for-beat remake of the original movie. While all signs point to Cavill stepping directly into Christopher Lambert’s role of Connor MacLeod, the director has also intimated that he will be borrowing elements from the television series as well. Exactly what aspects of the show Stahelski will use remains to be seen, but it would indicate he is potentially setting up a far more detailed and expansive world of immortals than what was first introduced in 1986.

Additionally, many of the problems that 1991’s Highlander 2 and the later movies all faced were that the first movie was largely a self-contained tale that ultimately saw Lambert’s Connor MacLeod fight to the last man and attain “The Prize.” The following movies and even the television series needed to either find a way around this original ending or simply opt to retcon it completely. However, with Stahelski planning on establishing his own ongoing Highlander franchise, it is likely Cavill’s Connor MacLeod will experience a much longer road to attaining “The Prize.”