Nobody wants a remake of Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai
. And I meant that seriously. Nobody. Ok, other than The Weinsteins and director Scott Mann, who has just been hired to decimate...er, direct a "contemporary" version of the 1954 classic. This isn't fresh out the box news that a remake was in the works, but it had sat around long enough that I thought cooler heads had prevailed and it would never happen. Apparently the idiot corner of the studio won out. Variety reports that the story would take place in Northern Thailand, and involve a village hiring seven paramilitary contractors from around the world to protect them from attack. I can see this being turned into a younger, "hipper" version of The Expendables
already. Kurosawa is smacking his forehead in Heaven at what is being done to his masterpiece. Could the point really be missed so badly?As if to hammer the point home, John Fusco, who wrote friggin' Young Guns
(!!!) is writing the script. The Weinsteins must have some confidence in the project, giving Mann a hefty $60M budget to play with. Mann is probably best known for his straight-to-DVD flick, The Tournament
, which I actually gave a decent rating here on the site, making note of the severe wasted potential. It in no way qualifies him to tinker around with a Kurosawa. He shouldn't get to hang around lesser Kurosawa stuff. Kurosawa's movies have influenced practically hundreds of movies over the decades, but in terms of straight up remakes they've mostly been left alone. Lately there seems to be an effort to change all that. You might recall last year that Chris Rock was brought in to script a remake of High and Low
for Mike Nichols to direct. Not sure where that project stands right now, but much like this one I hope it's died a painful death.
