Superman star Henry Cavill is set to star in a Highlander reboot as the iconic franchise returns to screens.

A remake of the original film has been rumoured since as early as 2008, and the director Chad Stalheski has now confirmed the film is still in the works and could be the start of a major franchise.

Speaking in an interview on the Happy Sad podcast on Monday, he said the new film is coming and could mean big things for the British actor.

Talking about the upcoming film, he said: ‘I think we have some very good elements now. The trick is when you have the tagline: ‘”There can only be one”, you just can’t kill everybody the first time.’

The Highlander franchise began in 1986 with a fantasy film starring Christopher Lambert, and then continued across the end of the 20th century and into the 21st with a TV series.

Next project: Superman star Henry Cavill, 40, is set to star in the 1986 Highlander reboot, the director confirmed in an interview on the Happy Sad podcast on Monday (Henry pictured in 2022)

Iconic: The Highlander series ran from 1992 to 1998 and starred Duncan MacLeod as an  Immortal who had to live in modern society, concealing his true nature while fighting other Immortals

In total it spawned four films, two live-action TV series and a series of original novels, among others.

Rumours of a remake have been talked about for a while and in 2016 Chad, who is also the director of action thriller series John Wick, came on board.

There has been little update on the franchise’s development since 2021, however Chad now confirmed: ‘Highlander, I can tell you right now… if we got our s*** together and we pull off the feature, we have ideas for days about how to make the coolest characters and to make that an epic TV show.

‘I just think that’s a rich, rich, rich, rich mythology. When you can pick any period in time, any nationality, any culture, any type of person and make them an immortal, then have to duel and deal with the burden of immortality, that’s f***ing cool to me.’

Stalhelski added that it was a ‘creative burden’, saying: ‘I don’t want to be the guy that f***s this up.’

Last October, Henry announced that he was stepping down from his leading role in another fantasy franchise: Netflix’s The Witcher, and the director has since opened up about his exit.

Less than a month after the Henry’s final episodes aired, Mark Jobst discussed how he believes that sheer exhaustion and his unrelenting work ethic may be why he quit the series.

The 40-year-old  played Geralt of Rivia in the first three seasons of the popular Netflix series, based on the beloved book series by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski.

Major franchise: The Highlander franchise began in 1986 with a fantasy film starring Christopher Lambert, and then continued across the end of the 20th century and into the 21st with a TV series

Previous roles: The actor starred as Superman in DC’s Man of Steel in 2013

Henry’s exit: Less than a month after Henry’s final episodes of Netflix’s The Witcher have aired, director Mark Jobst opened up about his exit

However, he announced in October 2022 that he would be leaving the series after the third season, with Liam Hemsworth coming aboard to replace him.

While many speculated that his exit was due to his brief return as Superman in last year’s Black Adam… before those plans were scrapped by new DC heads James Gunn and Peter Safran, Jobst has another theory.

The director – who was at the helm for two episodes in the show’s first season, believes that sheer exhaustion and his unrelenting work ethic may have had a hand in his exit as well.

‘Well, look, Henry has done three series, these are demanding shows to make, you know, they are huge. Henry does every single beat of his stunts, he won’t even allow a hand, if you’re doing a close up of a hand grabbing a sword, it has to be his hand,’ Jobst explained.

‘So, normally, what you do is you bring in a double, Henry will go off and shoot some other scene in which he’s in somewhere else, and you get somebody else into the hand, so that you don’t have to bother your number one. Henry won’t do that, and as a result of that, the results are extraordinary,’ Jobst admitted.

‘You’re working with an incredible athlete, first and foremost, who works out hours before, and hours after, you’ve been shooting for 12 hours, and who cares deeply about the work that he does,’ he added.