MOVIE NEWS – Forty years after the 1986 cult film, Titan Comics is releasing a graphic novel adaptation of Gregory Widen‘s original Highlander screenplay, which he wrote as a UCLA film student, and which differs from the finished movie in several significant ways.
Gregory Widen wrote and sold the script for the first Highlander, and thus birthed the long-running franchise, when he was a lowly undergrad film student at UCLA. His original script is now being adapted into a graphic novel courtesy of Titan Comics. Highlander: The Original Screenplay is based on Widen’s script that became the basis of the movie, and presents the immortal saga of Connor MacLeod as Widen first imagined it. Due for release on November 17, 2026, the artwork will be provided by Szymon Kudranski, known for his work on Spawn.
The original screenplay was reportedly darker and more violent than the final film, and differed significantly when it came to various characters’ backstories as well as the denouement. Most notably, Connor MacLeod in the original script is an outright anti-hero with little sense of nobility. One major theme was that MacLeod and the Kurgan were two sides of the same coin; the Kurgan claims at one point that he is the only real friend MacLeod has ever known in all his years. The movie also ends with MacLeod killing his love interest, Brenda, so as to preserve the secret of the Immortals. Among the cut scenes is an 18th century encounter between MacLeod and the Kurgan in France, as well as a scene in which Ramirez warns his pupil that an Immortal who does not live life to the fullest and love freely will become like the Kurgan: cold and fixated on conquest and The Prize.
The book marks the 40th anniversary of the Highlander franchise and coincides with the upcoming reboot starring Henry Cavill, Russell Crowe, and Dave Bautista, directed by Chad Stahelski (John Wick), whose principal photography began on January 28, 2026 in Scotland. The graphic novel will be published by Titan Comics and distributed by Penguin Random House, making Titan the third Highlander comics publisher after IDW (2017) and Dynamite (2006-2009). The book is available to preorder now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Forbidden Planet.
Source: MovieWeb
