The Highlander franchise is a strange one, and it’s more than a little shocking that it even became a franchise. Even the original 1986 movie is, still today, more a cult classic than an actual classic, and the various sequels and spinoffs haven’t been much better received. However, while the series of films and TV have their high points, it doesn't get much lower than Highlander 2: The Quickening. The first movie sequel was absolutely terrible, though one cannot entirely blame the cast or the crew for that, as they were all less involved in what the movie became than you might think.
We’ve seen recent examples of what happens when a movie is taken out of the control of its director. Zack Snyder’s Justice League came after years of fans asking for the “Snyder Cut,” hoping to one day see the movie the director had actually intended to make before he was forced to step away. To this day, fans of the first Suicide Squad hope to eventually see the film that David Ayer intended to make. But before those movies, there was the story of Highlander 2, a movie whose director lost control of it not to another director or even a studio, but to an insurance company, and how something like the movie it was supposed to be did eventually see the light of day.
What Happened During Highlander 2’s Production?
The original Highlander, which is about a Scottish man who is blessed (or perhaps cursed) with immortality for unknown reasons and must fight other immortals to the death (for there can be only one), wasn’t much of a box office hit, but it found enough success in the growing world of home video that a sequel was given the green light. Stars Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery were set to return, despite the latter actor’s character dying in the first film, as did the first film’s director, Russell Mulcahy. Everything seemed to be in place for more fantasy sword-wielding action.
Unfortunately, one fateful decision was made which inadvertently doomed the entire production. Argentina was chosen as the place to film the Highlander sequel. While the movie would be set in America like the first one, filming in Argentina was going to be a great deal cheaper... until it became incredibly expensive.
In the middle of production, the Argentine economy collapsed. The government had borrowed massive sums of money, which led to hyperinflation of Argentina’s currency. Suddenly, everything the production wanted became incredibly expensive, and the odds of any of the film’s investors actually making any money started to evaporate. This was a serious problem because, according to producer Peter Davis in the documentary film Seduced by Argentina, it was the foreign investment that pushed to make the sequel at all. He said…
We got such support from foreign distributors. We would go to Cannes and they would say, 'When are you doing this? When are you doing this? We want this for our marketplace There’s a real desire to see another Highlander film,.’
The result was that the bonding company took over production on Highlander 2. Production ceased, but before filming was actually completed. The final cut of the film was decided on by the company, nor director Russell Mulcahy. Visual FX Supervisor Sam Nicholson explained...
It was a complete nightmare, all of a sudden, people who had been allowed in the cutting room were not allowed in the cutting room/. All the creatives shifted. You had a new set of bosses, different producers came in. At the end of the day, we're like a horse with a different rider on it. All of a sudden this rider was like totally into purely finishing the film from an insurance company standpoint.
The final result was a movie so far from what director Russell Mulcahy was happy with that he reportedly walked out of the premiere after about 15 minutes.
What Was Highlander 2: The Quickening?
So what was the problem with Highlander 2: The Quickening? The original film introduces a world where some people are born as immortals. When they die, they return to life, and once that happens, they become part of an ongoing battle among all other immortals, each trying to kill the others in the only way they can be killed, by beheading. The original film suggests that nobody knows how or why all this happening.
The sequel attempts to answer the how and why by revealing that the immortals are, in fact, aliens. On a faraway world called Zeist, there has been an ongoing civil war, and Lambert and Connery’s Maclaoud and Ramirez are among its leaders. Captured by their enemy, they are banished to the planet Earth, where they will be immortal and must battle with all other banished citizens until only one remains.
Needless to say that the alien answer went over as well in 1991 for Highlander fans as it would a couple of decades later for viewers of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Fans hated it, but ultimately this was never the movie that the filmmakers had wanted. The movie they wanted simply couldn't be released because they had never shot all of it.
How Highlander 2: The Renegade Version Tries To Fix Things?
wDespite its terrible reception by everybody, including die-hard fans, The Quickening would not be the end of the Highlander franchise. 1992 would see the launch of a Highlander TV series that would effectively act as a reboot with a new lead character. A third theatrical film starring Christopher Lambert, which was also bad, would be released in 1994. However, after all that, Highlander 2 would see new life.
Highlander 2: The Renegade Version was released in 1995, and it would see director Russell Mulcahy attempt to reconstruct the film into something at least closer to what he had originally intended. The Renegade Version resulted in some scenes being deleted, others added and existing scenes changed radically to the point that the two films are almost as different as the two versions of Justice League.
Gone are any references to alien worlds. Now, the war is taking place thousands of years in Earth’s lost, technologically-advanced past, and our heroes are banished into the future. Immortality is also not a side effect of this, but something that Connor and Ramirez have naturally, for a still unknown reason.
Highlander 2: The Renegade Cut isn’t a good movie. It is, however, superior to the version that came before it, and almost certainly the best version of this movie that could exist. The fact that some portion of the planned production was never shot makes it ultimately impossible to truly make the movie the director intended. Even Zack Snyder couldn't make his Justice League without reshoots, but that was never going to happen here. Ironically, The Renegade Version is the only version of Highlander 2 you’re likely to find if you go looking today. It’s the only one to be released on Blu-ray or on digital platforms. The original cut is largely lost to time.
There has been a Highlander reboot in various stages of development in the last few years. John Wick's Chad Stahelski is set to direct, as far as we still know, and last we heard, Henry Caill was going to star as the new Highlander, though it's unclear if he will play the same character as Christopher Lambert, or somebody new. As a fan of this admittedly bonkers franchise, I am hopeful we see more one day. Hopefully, if it does happen, everybody involved will at least be proud of what eventually gets put on screen.
