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Antoine Fuqua directed Denzel Washington to an Oscar in the dirty cop drama/thriller Training Day in 2001, but it took some thirteen years before the pair reunited on the cinematic reboot of the 1980s action TV property The Equalizer – a movie that will arrive in theaters later this month. The wait for the duo’s third collaboration looks to be much shorter, fortunately, as they’re now set to reteam on a remake of the classic American western The Magnificent Seven.
Fuqua and Washington were reported to be in early talks for Magnificent Seven a few months ago, but now Fuqua has confirmed to Variety that this proposed collaboration is, in fact, going to happen sooner than later. The initial script draft for the project was penned by Nic Pizzolatto (creator of True Detective); that version of the screenplay is reported to have been revised by John Lee Hancock, the writer/director of such films as The Alamo and The Blind Side. However, it remains to be seen if a third writer ends up being recruited to restructure the script, to better match Fuqua’s vision for the film.
Director John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven – an American western re-imagining of director Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai – was released in 1960, and revolves around a group of seven American gunmen, who are hired to protect a small Mexican village from a pack of marauders. Tom Cruise was once up to headline the Magnificent Seven remake; back then, the rumor was that the supporting cast would include multiple season actors – like Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman – who have worked in the western genre before.