MOVIE NEWS – Henry Cavill’s name is now being linked with financial flops in Hollywood, but fortunately, he’s backed by a partner with deep pockets. Still, Lionsgate has lost confidence in both him and the director of John Wick when it comes to the new Highlander reboot.

If everything goes according to plan, filming for the upcoming Highlander reboot starring Henry Cavill will begin later this year. The project is now in the hands of Amazon and MGM Studios after Lionsgate backed out, reportedly due to multiple concerns about the film’s commercial prospects. One of the main reasons? Cavill himself, whose recent box office record has done little to inspire confidence, according to The Wrap.

The outlet notes that Lionsgate — the studio behind Borderlands and The Hunger Games — was “alarmed” by the disappointing returns of Cavill’s last two films, Argyle and Ministry of Dirty War. Both were big-budget productions with respected directors, but they still bombed. And Lionsgate seems to believe Cavill shares the blame for those failures.

A Movie Only Gen Xers Would Care About?

The Wrap doesn’t say whether replacing Cavill was ever on the table, but it emphasizes that he wasn’t the only reason for Lionsgate’s exit. Apparently, the studio also saw Highlander as a niche project, with appeal limited to Gen X viewers who still remember Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery in the original film and the subsequent spinoffs. That kind of nostalgia isn’t exactly a box office guarantee.

This disagreement extended to the film’s budget. Despite their admiration for Chad Stahelski’s work on John Wick, Lionsgate reportedly refused his proposed $180 million budget, insisting instead on capping it at $165 million. We still don’t know what the final budget will be under Amazon and MGM, nor do we have a release date — except that it won’t hit theaters before 2027.

Let’s not forget that this is just one of many projects Cavill has lined up with the streaming giant. His biggest is the long-awaited adaptation of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, but there’s also a Voltron film that quietly began shooting late last year. So while some studios may no longer see Cavill as a bankable star, Amazon and MGM are clearly still willing to bet big on him — for now.

Source: 3djuegos