The Magnificent Seven is creeping towards that magic number in terms of actors who will be donning side arms to help stop some bad guys. Director Antoine Fuqua, who is preparing to shoot the latest version of the story, has cast Elysium’s Wagner Moura.
The ensemble so far includes Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Chris Pratt, Haley Bennett, Luke Grimes and Vincent D’Onofrio. The movie will once more see a small town – in this case built around a gold mine – threatened by a ruthless baron and his gang of thugs. When they kill several people in their attempt to take the place over, a young widow (Bennett) hires a bounty hunter (Washington) to dispatch the villains, supplying him with the necessary funds to hire six gunmen to help him in his mission.
This is where Pratt, Hawke and others come into play - and possibly D'Onofrio, too. The early thought was that he'd be following Daredevil's Wilson Fisk with more villain duties here but he's since taken to Twitter to disavow the world of that idea. Moura will also play a member of the Seven, a gunslinger called Vasquez.
John Lee Hancock and True Detective’s Nic Pizzolatto are among those who have contributed to the screenplay, adapted from the classic Seven Samurai, which became the first crack at a Magnificent Seven in 1960. Fuqua’s version has a January 13 release date on the books.
Moura was part of the cast for Stephen Daldry’s Trash and has been working on TV crime drama Narcos for regular collaborator José Padilha, playing drug baron Pablo Escobar.