If you’re super-sensitive to remake news you might wanna cover your eyes.
Seems MGM has given Carrie and RoboCop (just to name a few – ’cause holy cats they have a lot of remakes on their docket) a new playmate in their free-range remake pen – John Sturges’ seminal 1960 western The Magnificent Seven (which, of course, was itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, and has – rightfully – been called the greatest remake of all time) with Tom Cruise (supposedly?) slated to take the lead – he’s certainly attached in some way.
I’ll give some of you a minute to compose yourselves.
At the moment the film is barely past the announcement stage and there is still a healthy amount of development to do (not to mention Cruise’s insanely long list of films that he’s either scheduled to shoot or is attached to in some way). We’ve already had The Remake Discussion far too many times for me to go into it here (and who am I kidding – you dudes are gonna light it up in the comments and on the boards), so what I’m mainly curious about is 1) how they’re going to contextualize it and 2) just what role Cruise will play. Obviously the western still has some merit in the modern world with The Assassination of Jesse James and the Coens’ True Grit being the success they were (and Rango!) and Django Unchained getting the buzz it’s getting, plus everybody loves a good team-building movie (let’s be honest – Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven has already unofficially been remade about a billion times) so it wouldn’t be a stretch to see MGM just tackle it straight in terms of story, but given the current political climate there’s honestly countless number of ways a clever screenwriter could tell this story and make it relevant to today’s movie-going population.
As far as Cruise – I’ve always liked that he was a dude who could carry a movie with ease, but seems like a dude who would have no problem taking a backseat when he needed to, so I’m curious to see where he ends up casting-wise, whether he takes the Yul Brenner role or steps back to give someone else the spotlight.
Obviously we’ll bring you more as we know it, but in the meantime – cast your Seven on the boards or in the comments below.
Source | Collider