Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai is the cinematic gift that keeps on giving, having been remade and reinterpreted in a variety of different guises, with Zack Snyder the latest to homage the all-time great after refitting his abandoned Star Wars spinoff into Netflix’s epic sci-fi blockbuster Rebel Moon.
The most famous retread of the basic story came in 1960’s Western The Magnificent Seven, which may have been as simple an exercise as transplanting the formula to the Old West, but still managed to deliver a stone-cold classic in its own right. Three sequels and a TV series followed in the aftermath, but John Sturges’ Western was eventually given a remake of its own in 2016, with director Antoine Fuqua assembling a star-studded ensemble with the potential to rival Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and the rest of the titular team.
Denzel Washington took top billing in another re-teaming with his Training Day and The Equalizer director, and the supporting cast was packed to the brim with talent including Chris Pratt, Vincent D’Onofrio, Ethan Hawke, Peter Sarsgaard, Matt Bomer and many more. There was no justifiable reason for the movie to exist, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a whole lot of fun.
As is the case when any of Denzel Washington‘s back catalogue finds itself being added to the Netflix library, The Magnificent Seven has been galloping towards the upper reaches of the Top 10 most-watched list. At the time of writing, it’s sitting pretty in second place, with the Washington/Pratt star power combination no doubt playing a significant part in the $90 million adventure finding a new lease of life on the world’s most popular platform.
