A remake of the beloved 1960 Western The Magnificent Seven (itself a Westernized redo of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai), featuring such classic movie stars as Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and Yul Brynner, has been in the works for quite a while now but lately things have been galloping ahead on that front. And today we have news of two more actors joining Sony and MGM’s already star-studded cast.
First up is Jason Momoa, who made quite a mark on Game of Thrones as Khal Drogo back in its first season before being announced to play DC’s Aquaman in the 2018 comic book movie, a role that he will first play in the hugely anticipated Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. The Hollywood Reporter suggests he will be playing one of the remake’s “heavies” although he is NOT the film’s main “robber baron” villain.
Second up we have Byung-hun Lee, the South Korean superstar (he’s pretty much like their equivalent of Brad Pitt in terms of stardom) who has been making some serious in-roads to Hollywood over the last few years. He has appeared in everything from Red 2 to both G.I. Joe movies (playing the deadly ninja Storm Shadow) and will next be seen as the T-1000 in Terminator Genisys. I hugely recommend anyone only familiar with him in US blockbusters to check out his South Korean movies like A Bittersweet Life and I Saw the Devil. Deadline reports that Lee is in talks to play the role of Billy Rocks, which isn’t a name of any character in the original film so either he’s been renamed or written anew for this version.
If Lee and Momoa are cast, they join an already stacked cast that includes Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Chris Pratt, Vincent D’Onofrio, Wagner Moura (Elite Squad movies) and Haley Bennett (The Equalizer). Antoine Fuqua, who made the likes of Training Day, Olympus Has Fallen and the upcoming Southpaw, is stepping behind the camera for the Western update working from a script written by John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, Snow White and the Huntsman) and Nic Pizzolatto (True Detective). The story is said to, “kick off when a woman (Bennett) hires a disparate group of gunslingers to protect her town from rampaging bandits.”
When I first heard about the project I was dubious about them remaking Magnificent Seven but that cast and director has me very intrigued. Also, there aren’t enough Westerns made anymore so I welcome any we can get with open arms.
Are you excited for a Magnificent Seven remake? What do you make of these latest bits of casting?
Shooting on The Magnificent Seven is set to start this May with a release date currently set at January 13th, 2017.
Sources: The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, ABC News (images)