There Can Only Be None: Justin Lin Off ‘Highlander’ Reboot

By  · Published on August 13th, 2011

Considering this week’s news that Justin Lin was vrooming down the director’s highway and careening right from Fast Five to the next installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise (forgive the terrible puns), it’s no surprise that the director is kicking some other projects out of his metaphorical trunk (glove compartment? backseat? whatever?) to make way for more mayhem with Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. The first causality of that fast track? The Highlander reboot Lin has been attached to direct since 2009.

Lin is now off the film, leaving Summit scrambling to find a new director to take on their reboot of the 1986 flick which spawned no less than four sequels and three television series. Of course, any film that essentially plays out like a video game starring Sean Connery and Christopher Lambert and that comes with its own nifty catchphrase should obviously be milked for every bit it’s worth. Lin hasn’t totally vacated the project yet, however, and will reportedly stay on as an executive producer.

The last big news we heard out of Summit was that they’d tapped Melissa Rosenberg to pen the script. As our own Cole Abaius pointed out, most other sites simply spread that news by crying that the screenwriter for the Twilight films was writing the reboot, failing to mention that Rosenberg has also served as a producer and writer for television’s Dexter, so she’s got more bite behind her work than just those vampire flicks. Rosenberg’s announcement as screenwriter followed a revolving door of attached writers, from the Wibberlys to Art Marcum and Matt Holloway. It’s hard to blame Summit for choosing Rosenberg, a proven and deliverable talent ‐ at least in their eyes.

Summit is apparently looking to get the project going relatively soon, so it shouldn’t be long without a helmer. The real concern of such a reboot? The casting. Here’s hoping we don’t see any of the Twilight “wolf pack” installed in the film. [THR]