Not that there was a lot of positive buzz swirling around MGM's planned remake of Western classic, The Magnificent Seven, but at least when development began in 2012 Tom Cruise was involved. Now that's no longer the case as The Wrap reports Cruise has exited the picture, just as Saving Mr. Banks director John Lee Hancock has come on to give it a rewrite.
Considering the busy slate ahead of Cruise this doesn't come as a total surprise. He's currently hard at work on Mission: Impossible 5 and will jump into a Jack Reacher sequel once that's done. Hancock will be taking over for writer Nic Pizzolatto (HBO's True Detective) who wrote the initial draft based on the 1960 film starring Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and more as a group of hired gunmen protecting a village from outlaws. It was itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai.
There's still no director officially on board but Hancock has experience in the genre, directing 2004's big budget flop, The Alamo.
