Tom Cruise to Star in The Magnificent Seven Remake
It would appear that Hollywood has essentially run out of movies to remake, because now they’re starting to remake the remakes as well. This week MGM has announced that they are setting up a new version of The Magnificent Seven, the 1960 Western directed by John Sturges, which itself was a loose remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. This will join a long list of remakes already in development at MGM including Carrie, Robocop, Poltergeist and Wargames, not to mention their Red Dawn remake, which was already completed but has been sitting on a shelf for a couple of years now. While there is no writer or director attached as of yet, they do have a big star on board for the film in the form of Mr. Tom Cruise. Something tells me that will not help endear this project to fans of the original film.
According to Variety, the project could be a ways off still, and is “not in Cruise’s immediate plans.” The original Magnificent Seven consisted of Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter, and Horst Buchholz, and the plot involved them protecting a small village in Mexico from a group of bandits. It spawned three sequels and was eventually revived as a TV series in the late ’90s.
While it may sound a bit strange, I’d be very curious to see Tom Cruise in a Western simply because he has never been in one up until now. The Last Samurai is probably the closest he has come, but if you ask me, every great actor needs to have at least one Western in their filmography. Depending on what the movie’s budget ends up being, this could be a perfect opportunity to assemble a big A-list cast in the vein of Ocean’s Eleven. However, something tells me that if Cruise remains attached, he will want to be the star of the show. What do you think, do you want to see Tom Cruise don a cowboy hat? Is The Magnificent Seven ripe for a remake?
