By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Fans are hoping that the upcoming Highlander reboot will bring this nearly-forgotten swords and sorcery franchise back to life. I share those hopes, but I’m also crossing my fingers that a successful blockbuster film can revitalize the career of Henry Cavill. That’s because this beloved actor has become something of a paradox: he remains very popular, but it’s been many years since his Hollywood career was actually relevant.
Cavill’s first real breakout role was starring as Charles Brandon in The Tudors. But since this was a Showtime show about the reign of King Henry VIII, its fandom was mostly limited to history nerds with a cable subscription. Everyone else fell in love with Cavill a few years later when he starred in Man of Steel, playing Superman in the movie that kickstarted the DCEU.
Henry Cavill’s Rapidly Fading Relevancy
He continued playing this famous superhero in various other DCEU projects while branching out, playing the lead in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and the surprise villain in Mission Impossible: Fallout. Henry Cavill also played the lead role in The Witcher Netflix show before eventually leaving and getting replaced by Liam Hemsworth. Soon, the DCEU imploded; Cavill was no longer playing Superman, and his career stalled out in a very noticeable way.
Cavill’s last really big role was Zack Snyder’s Justice League in 2021, which itself was just a director’s cut of the earlier 2017 Justice League. He made brief (but memorable) appearances in the Enola Holmes films as Sherlock Holmes, and he popped up for a fun visual gag in Deadpool & Wolverine (“the Cavillrine!”). Sadly, his most recent feature film roles, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and Argylle, were both complete and utter box office bombs.
Henry Cavill Is Banking On Highlander To Save Him
That’s why the Highlander reboot has become so important for Henry Cavill: its success would make the talented actor actually relevant again. It went off the rails and has largely faded from pop culture memory, but the Highlander series was once quite popular and still has legions of fans. If the reboot ends up being great, it could help to revitalize Cavill’s career, just like the initial success of The Man of Steel helped him land roles in other franchises like Mission: Impossible and The Witcher.
If the Highlander reboot flops, though, Cavill might become further irrelevant in the eyes of mainstream audiences. Certainly, he’s still very popular, but you’re far likelier to see fans online praising him for his outwardly nerdy behavior (like his passion for PC gaming and his proficiency at building his own computers) than his acting. That’s because it’s been a staggering seven years since Cavill had a starring role in a theatrical film that actually made a profit.
Can Warhammer 40,000 Save Henry Cavill?
The actor’s other big gamble is Warhammer 40,000, as the actor will be starring in and executive producing a Prime Video series based on this famous tabletop game from Games Workshop. I’m a huge fan of the 40k universe and really hope Cavill’s Amazon gamble paid off, but it is quite a creative risk. That’s because any deviations will turn off hardcore fans from decades of tortured franchise lore, and casual audiences may be turned away by a show where there are no good guys and the closest things to heroes (the Space Marines) are openly fascist.
Henry Cavill is an actor who parlayed relatively minor fame from his role in a historical TV show to a career playing Superman, the most famous superhero of all time. When he had to hang up the cape, though, he seemingly hung up his ability to land starring roles in other successful productions. We can only hope the upcoming Highlander reboot succeeds and makes the actor relevant again because, at this rate, Cavill is just another box office bomb or two away from just starting a video game podcast and hawking supplements to a small army of twitchy young gamers.
