New set photos from Amazon MGM Studios’ upcoming Highlander film starring Henry Cavill reveal a first look at Dave Bautista’s Kurgan.
Back in 2025 it was announced that Bautista would play the Kurgan, who was originally played by Clancy Brown in the original film opposite Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod.
Now, X user UnBoxPHD shared a set photo that shows Bautista’s Kurgan seemingly dressed as a priest.
The outlet shared video from the set that shows him walking across the street as well as hanging upside down over top of a vehicle.
It’s unclear why the Kurgan is dressed as a priest. It could be a reference to the original film where he taunts McCleod inside a Catholic church.
Additionally, in Highlander lore Immortals such as the Kurgan and McCleod are forbidden from fighting on holy ground. It’s possible that the Kurgan is disguising himself as a priest in order to protect himself from attacks and uses the holy ground to launch his own attacks.
It’s unclear exactly what the story of this new Highlander film will be. Given Bautista is playing the Kurgan, it appears it will loosely reboot the entire film series.
The film’s director, Chad Stahelski, indicated that like the original film it will jump back and forth between time periods. He told The Direct, “We're bringing it forward from the early 1500s in the highlands to the beyond present-day New York and Hong Kong, and seeing how it goes.”
He also shared how he pitched the protagonist to Henry Cavill, “My selling point was, to [Henry Cavill], look, you've got a guy that's been alive for over 500 years. He's the last person in the world that wanted to be in this situation. So you get to cover quite a broad spread of a character arc there.”
“And you get to experience someone that’s trained over 500 years and sort of played [with many types of] martial arts,” he added.
Stahelski also informed the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he’s planning on incorporating elements from the Highlander TV show into the movie, “We’re looking to do our story– engages a lot of the same characters and stuff like that. But we’ve also brought in elements of all the TV shows, and we’re trying to do a bit of a prequel, a setup for the The Gathering. So we have room to grow the property.”
Additionally, he told Collider that the plan is for it to be a trilogy that leads to the Gathering, “The vision we’re trying to get across and what we’re trying to develop, I equate very close to Star Wars. The first one is a very satisfying ending but it does leave the door open and that’s kind of how I see this. I would really like to expand it over three. I see the gathering happening over three.”
“It’s tricky don’t get me wrong, that’s why we’re still developing it,” he noted. “We want to be able to tell three complete stories that all kind of fit. I think the Star Wars trilogy, at least up to The Empire Strikes Back, is a good example of how we want to process it.”
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There can be only one. And that one is Clancy Brown.
If they can pull it off. I’m willing to watch. I love the Highlander franchise