Variety reports that Boyhood‘s Ethan Hawke has entered the final stages of negotiations for a role in MGM’s remake of The Magnificent Seven. Should he lock down the part, we’ll be in for a full-blown Training Day reunion, as his collaborators on the 2001 cop thriller – Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington – are already on board to direct and star, respectively.
Hawke now stands to appear alongside man of the moment, Chris Pratt, who signed on back in December, and The Equalizer‘s Haley Bennett, who recently snagged the female lead. The matter of who Hawke will be playing is under lock and key, but logic suggests he may be one of the titular seven.
With regards to the story, very little has been revealed so far. We know that the movie will remake John Sturges’ 1960 original, and, like that classic it will concentrate on a small town whose residents hire a crew of gunslingers to defend them from outsiders. On that basis alone it’s safe to assume the wild west location will forge the backdrop for this third retelling. The 1960 version – starring Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner – was itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, repackaged and recast so as to appeal to U.S. audiences.
Tapping away at the keys for The Magnificent Seven is John Lee Hancock. Known mainly for his work behind the camera on material such as Oscar-winner The Blind Side and Disney meta-pic, Saving Mr. Banks, Hancock is currently rewriting a script based on a first draft by True Detective‘s Nic Pizzolatto.