Summit Books Highlander Remake

There Should Be Only One

(Bear in mind: I’m going to try and make it through the next posting without any profanity. Set your bets, folks.)

Summit Entertainment has lined director Justin Lin up with “Iron Man” writers Art Marcum and Matt Holloway for a “re-imagining” of the 1986 Russell Mulcahy film “Highlander.”

The original, written and directed by Mulcahy, starred Christoper Lambert as Scotsman Connor MacLeod. He learns he’s one of an immortal race of beings, beheading each other until only one remains. The movie also stars Sean Connery as MacLeod’s mentor, and Clancy Brown at his menacing worst as the Kurgan, a particularly nasty Immortal from the Steppes of Russia.

Let’s go to the press release, where Summit is just trying to bait me into swearing:

Summit’s film will expand on the original HIGHLANDER’s core mythology of immortals battling amongst us, hunting each other through the ages by tapping its newly minted creative team to take its re-imagination to new heights. Plans call for the re-imagination to spur a new franchise for the studio.

(Breathe, Pike. Breathe.)

“Highlander,” while committing several cardinal sins of Eighties fantasy filmmaking, is one of those movies that, if you watched it at the right time, imprints on you. There were bad sequels (“The Quickening”), worse sequels (“The Final Dimension”), a decent TV series starring Adrian Paul (as Connor’s cousin Duncan, who’s also immortal – yeah, I know) and what should have been the last movie uniting Connor and Duncan.

(Deep breaths, Pike.)

Okay, I get why the subject matter is a fertile ground for hungry movie execs to try and till for more cash. Also, really, who can resist sword-fighting Immortals, who can only be killed by beheading?

All that taken into account, there’s real wisdom from the greatest credo from the first movie: “There can be only one.”

Summit wants to have this abomination in theaters by the end of 2010.

Thanks to Chase Whale, for alerting us to this press release from Hell.