Two-time Academy Award nominee and frequent franchise player Djimon Hounsou is the latest bold-faced name to join the cast of Highlander, Amazon MGM’s remake of the 1980s cult classic.
Henry Cavill is leading the cast that includes Russell Crowe and Marisa Abela as well as Dave Bautista and Karen Gillan, the latter two who notably appeared with Hounsou in Guardians of the Galaxy.
The action fantasy, which hails from Amazon MGM’s United Artists banner, is being directed by Chad Stahelski and is slated for a theatrical release. Principal photography is due to begin at the end of September.
Cavill is playing Connor MacLeod, a Medieval Scottish Highlander who discovers he is an immortal warrior. With the help of a swordsman named Ramirez, to be played by Crowe, the titular Highlander battles other immortals across the centuries, until, as the line in the original 1986 movie exclaimed, “there can be only one.”
Hounsou will play an immortal warrior from Africa.
Bautista is already on the roll call as The Kurgen, the movie’s top villain, while Gillan is MacLeod’s Scottish and very mortal wife. Abela is MacLeod’s modern romantic interest.
Michael Finch wrote the script for the remake. Scott Stuber and Nick Nesbitt are producing via United Artists, alongside Neal H. Moritz, Stahelski’s 87Eleven Entertainment, Josh Davis of Davis Panzer Productions and Louise Rosner.
Hounsou showed his dramatic chops with a breakthrough performance in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad, then earned Oscar nominations for In America and Blood Diamond.
He played Korath the Pursuer in Guardians and other Marvel Cinematic Universe outings, appeared in the DC-based Shazam! franchise and in Zack Snyder’s sci-fi epic two-parter, Rebel Moon. He also appeared in two A Quiet Place movies.
Among projects in the can are an untitled Sony Pictures thriller from writer-director Tommy Wirkola and produced by Adam McKay, and in Red Card opposite Halle Berry.
Hounsou is repped by Buchwald, Range Media Partners, and Nelson Davis.