THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN remake that was announced a while back with Tom Cruise in talks to star and a script being penned by novelist Nic Pizzolatto who recently completed work on the HBO series True Detective. The project was never placed on the fast track and the studio, MGM, seemed to be taking its time to get it saddled up. Now, SAVING MR. BANKS’ John Lee Hancock is set to rewrite the current script, while Cruise has reportedly left the project, which is no surprise given that the original announcement for the remake was made in mid 2012. A year-and-a-half later and still no script is hardly a good situation for the prolific actor, who has MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE V and a sequl to JACK REACHER in the current pipeline.
Hancock has been making the rounds of late, particularly in schmaltzy Oscar-fare like THE BLIND SIDE and now SAVING MR. BANKS, but he’s also dabbled in the western genre as well, having directed the 2004 flop THE ALAMO with Billy Bob Thornton. MGM is mining the shit out of their current catalog of films with remakes of CARRIE, ROBOCOP, POLTERGEIST, and the in-devepment DEATH WISH and WAR GAMES in the hopes of turning a profit from these old properties, so it’s no surprise that they’d pull one from the ’60’s to make it ride again. No release date, casting, or director announcements have been made as this is still in the early stages of development. With Cruise out, though, I expect they’ll be looking for a suitable “front man” for the project pretty quick.
More as this develops.
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