Director John Sturges’ famous 1960 western The Magnificent Seven – itself, a western re-imagining of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 historical action/drama Seven Samurai – is getting a makeover in 2016, from Training Day and The Equalizer filmmaker Antoine Fuqua. The film also reunites Fuqua with his Training Day stars Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke, based on a screenplay that is now officially credited to True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto and The Equalizer screenwriter Richard Wenk in the newly-released “teaser” trailer for the movie. You can watch that theatrical preview above.
Also featuring such respected character actors as Peter Sarsgaard (Black Mass) and Vincent D’Onofrio (Daredevil), in addition to stars like Chris Pratt (Jurassic World) and Byung-Hun Lee (Terminator Genisys), The Magnificent Seven‘s international trailer is now online too and it features some additional footage not included in the U.S. version – though, the overall structure of both trailers is the same. You can watch that international Magnificent Seven trailer below, following the official synopsis for the film.
With the town of Rose Creek under the deadly control of industrialist Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), the desperate townspeople employ protection from seven outlaws, bounty hunters, gamblers and hired guns – Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington), Josh Farraday (Chris Pratt), Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio), Billy Rocks (Byung-Hun Lee), Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), and Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier). As they prepare the town for the violent showdown that they know is coming, these seven mercenaries find themselves fighting for more than money.
Fuqua’s resume includes a number of modern action/thrillers centered around protagonists who seek peace and/or redemption by using their skills at violence to serve a greater good (see Shooter, Olympus Has Fallen, The Equalizer) and his 2004 version of King Arthur is likewise a historical drama/adventure that has shades of both the western and samurai movie genres. The first trailer footage from the Magnificent Seven is further testament that Fuqua was a good choice to take on the task of remaking a beloved Hollywood western, as the remake looks to draw on well-established western genre tropes (both visually and story-wise) – even as it infuses them with a modern touch that could allow the film to appeal to those moviegoers who normally don’t have much interest in westerns nowadays (unless, say, Quentin Tarantino is the one directing them).
Co-starring Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series), Martin Sensmeier (Salem), Matt Bomer (Magic Mike XXL), and Haley Bennett (Hardcore Henry), Fuqua’s version of Magnificent Seven also looks to benefit from its charismatic leads and play to their strengths – with Washington portraying the no-nonsense leader of the eponymous gunslinger team, Pratt as the wise-cracking scoundrel of the pack, and so forth. It will also be the rare non-Tarantino western to get a mainstream release since the Coen Brothers’ True Grit in 2010 (what with recent acclaimed westerns like Bone Tomahawk having gotten limited releases only) – something that ought to make it all the easier for Fuqua’s take on The Magnificent Seven to stand apart from the rest of the crowd, when it makes its way into theaters later this year.
NEXT: The Magnificent Seven Images
The Magnificent Seven opens in U.S. theaters on September 23rd, 2016.
