Juan Carlos Fresnadillo to direct ‘Highlander’

The remake of Highlander, which starred Christopher Lambert, has been given the greenlight by Summit Entertainment to have its new director, Spanish filmmaker Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who directed 28 Weeks Later and now, four years later, has Intruders opening at TIFF, to direct the remake.

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo will direct Summit Entertainment’s re-imagination of the cult film HIGHLANDER co-financed by RCR Media Group.  Summit’s HIGHLANDER is written by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway.  Neal H. Mortiz and Peter Davis will produce the project along with Enrique López Lavigne and Belen Atienza.  RCR Media Group’s principles Rui Costa Reis and Eliad Josephson will executive produce the film.  Justin Lin will also executive produce. Summit acquired the rights to remake the cult classic from Davis – Panzer Productions, Inc. in May of 2008.  Production on the film is slated to begin spring of 2012.

The Highlander premise goes like this:

He fought his first battle on the Scottish Highlands in 1536. He will fight his greatest battle on the streets of New York City in 1986. His name is Connor MacLeod. He is immortal. Connor Macleod was born in 1518 in the Highlands of Scotland. In 1536, after facing a mysterious, evil opponent, he survives a fatal stab wound and is banished from his village, for they believe his survival is the work of the Devil. Five years later, Macleod is met by Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez, a swordsman who teaches Macleod the awful truth; he is immortal, one of a race of many who can only die when the head is cut from the body. When one immortal takes the head of another, the loser’s power is absorbed into the winner. Ramirez teaches Macleod the ways of the sword, until Ramirez is tragically killed by Connor’s ultimate opponent, the evil Kurgan, a murderous immortal brute who lusts for the ultimate power of the immortals, “The Prize”; enough power to rule the earth forever. Connor fights his way through the centuries, until the time of the Gathering, when the few immortals who have survived the endless battles come together to fight until only one remains, and that winner will receive The Prize. The time: 1985. The place: New York City. The final fight is about to begin, and in the end, there can be only one.