MGM has added another up-and-comer to the star-studded cast of its Magnificent Seven redo. Billy Slaughter, last seen opposite Will Smith and Margot Robbie in this spring’s con artist caper Focus, has joined the cast in a supporting role.
Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Wagner Moura, Byung-Hun Lee and Luke Grimes are all in the cast of the film, which centers on a young woman (Haley Bennett) who enlists a disparate group of gunslingers to defend her town against bandits led by a cruel robber baron (Peter Sarsgaard) after he kills her law-abiding husband (Matt Bomer). This is a remake of the 1960 pic of the same name, which starred Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson.
The Blind Side scribe John Lee Hancock and True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto wrote the script.
Slaughter isn’t as familiar a name as the other actors, but he’s on the rise, having just shot a role in The Big Short opposite Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling and Christian Bale, and in Daddy’s Home alongside Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg.
The Magnificent Seven is being directed by Antoine Fuqua (The Equalizer), whose boxing drama Southpaw opens later this summer. Production on the pic is due to kick off any day now, as MGM finalizes the supporting cast members and works to keep to its schedule so as to avoid any of the bigger names moving along.
