As far as remakes of Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai go, the best and most memorable of the bunch came from our own shores and featured a uniquely American twist. That film was 1960s The Magnificent Seven, a Western directed by John Sturges and featured a testosterone heavy crew led by Charles Bronson, Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, James Coburn, and Yul Brynner. As Kurosawa's film has been redone so many times(including a very good anime version titled Samurai 7), now we're hearing of one for The Magnificent Seven, and it has a pretty huge name on board.
MGM, who have been on a remake frenzy ever since emerging from bankruptcy, are planning the film with Tom Cruise set to star. Cruise has never really done a Western before, so this would be new ground for him. Well, mostly. He did have a brief cameo in Young Guns as a random cowboy...
Yep, that's him under the mustache and 10-gallon hat. So this is something Cruise has always wanted to do, as he's flirted with other Westerns in the past. So far we don't have any information on how closely this version will stick to the plot, which had a group of seven gunfighters hired to defend a Mexican village from bandits. There are no writers or director aboard yet, and since this is probably a ways off due to Cruise's schedule, we may not learn anything for awhile. [Variety]
