There’s been no shortage of remakes coming out of Hollywood in recent years, but every now and then one comes along that seems promising. Case in point: A reunion of actor Denzel Washington with director Antoine Fuqua on a remake of the 1960 western The Magnificent Seven.
Deadline Hollywood reports that the Oscar-winning actor is in the early stages of discussion with MGM about joining the project, which would reunite him with the filmmaker responsible for Training Day, the 2001 drama that earned Washington his first and only Best Actor Oscar. Adding to the project’s appeal is the involvement of True Detective writer and executive producer Nic Pizzolatto, who wrote an early draft of the script for the remake.
The original 1960 film was itself a Western remake of Akira Kurosawa’s celebrated 1954 Japanese film Seven Samurai, and told the story of a ragtag group of seven gunmen who are hired to save a small Mexican village from a band of vicious outlaws. The impressive ensemble cast for the film included Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn,Robert Vaughn, and Eli Wallach, and the film was directed by acclaimed filmmaker John Sturges (The Great Escape, Bad Day at Black Rock).
Of course, if the remake manages to land both Washington and Fuqua, the project shouldn’t have any problem assembling an impressive ensemble of its own.
Washington and Fuqua already have one upcoming project together, The Equalizer, which is based on the popular, late-’80s television series of the same name. That film is scheduled to hit theaters September 26, and early buzz on it has been so positive that the studio has already commissioned a sequel.
