It appears that director Antoine Fuqua is in pretty high demand right now. With his Denzel Washington vehicle The Equalizer set to come out this fall, Fuqua already has a lot on his plate. His next film will be the boxing drama Southpaw, and he’s in line already to direct The Equalizer 2 as part of a franchise effort for Sony. Now, we’re hearing that the director is being approached by MGM to take on the remake of The Magnificent Seven.
If Fuqua joins The Magnificent Seven remake, it’ll be a step in the right direction for the somewhat troubled film. The project has been going through some growing pains recently thanks to the departure of Tom Cruise Word is that MGM is trying to get ahold of Brad Pitt to take his place, but that hasn’t been confirmed just yet.
From what we know so far, the film seems to be a fairly straightforward remake of the 1960 western, which followed the path of a group of gunslingers hired by a small town to free them from bandits. Of course, the original film was itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, so it’s not like the remake of the remake will step on any toes.
Should Fuqua sign on to direct The Magnificent Seven, it will be added to his ever-growing roster, along with Fox’s Narco Sub, a former Tony Scott project about an American naval officer forced to smuggle cocaine by an Ecuadorian cartel. It’s not yet clear if Fuqua’s attachment to either Narco Sub or The Magnificent Seven would preclude him working on both, but the guy does seem to have a lot of projects to choose from.
The next Fuqua film we’re going to see in theaters though is The Equalizer, which comes to cinemas in September, followed by the filming of Southpaw. After that, it’s anyone’s guess as to what Antoine Fuqua will do next.
