Tom Cruise Saddles Up For THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN Remake
Tom Cruise may be approaching fifty years of age, but he shows no signs of intending to slow down. The Mission: Impossible star has a multitude of film projects on his ‘to-do’ list, and it looks like he’s just added another one – MGM’s remake of John Sturges’ classic western The Magnificent Seven.
Cruise has enjoyed a career resurgence following the massive success of Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol (some would argue that he’s never been away) and he’s capitalizing on the success of that film by attaching himself to a slew of high-profile acting gigs. However, the remake of The Magnificent Seven appears to be a long way off as the film doesn’t even have a director yet – or even a script for that matter. Now, before we get too excited about Hollywood remaking classic movies, it should be noted that The Magnificent Seven is actually a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, and that film turned out okay.
Sturges’ 1960 film starred the outstanding combination of Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter and Horst Buchholz as seven cowboys defending a Mexican village from Eli Wallach and his gang of evil bandits. The success of the film led to three lesser sequels and a short-lived television series starring Michael Biehn in the late 1990s.
The Magnificent Seven is the latest in a long line of remakes from troubled studio MGM. The home of Leo the Lion has also announced plans to remake RoboCop, WarGames, Death Wish, Carrie and Poltergeist. If we play our cards right then we might even get to see the long-delayed remake of Red Dawn.
If you think that MGM’s remake roster is impressive then you really should check out the list of films that Mr. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV has in development. Cruise will next be seen in Rock of Ages, and then he has One Shot/Reacher and Oblivion on the way. After that he is set to star in Doug Liman’s All You Need Is Kill, as well as Top Gun 2 and Mission: Impossible 5. The diminutive actor is also attached to Universal Picture’s reboot of Van Helsing and Warner Bros. wants to pair him with Robert Downey Jr. for El Presidente and join Clint Eastwood’s A Star Is Born. It’s also believed that he wants to reprise the character of Les Grossman in a Tropic Thunder spin-off, as well a re-team with Ben Stiller for The Hardy Men. That’s a lot of movies for one man.
Cruise’s role in The Magnificent Seven is far from a sure thing, heck even the movie isn’t a certainty at this point. However, a western is probably the only genre missing from the actor’s resume – okay, so he made Far And Away, but that wasn’t a guns blazing cowboy movie. At one point he was attached to star in 3:10 To Yuma, but that film ended up lassoing Russell Crowe and Christian Bale for its leads. A few years ago his name was even mentioned in relation to a remake of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a film that would have allegedly teamed him with John Travolta. So this news of a starring role in The Magnificent Seven seems to support the notion that Cruise is chomping at the bit to slip into some chaps and spurs in order to hit the open range for a western.
We’ll see if Tom Cruise really does climb into the saddle for The Magnificent Seven, or if he bolts from the project.
Source: Variety via Screen Rant
