There’s a lot of excitement building for Denzel Washington’s third movie with Training Day director Antoine Fuqua, a remake of the Western The Magnificent Seven, which reunites him with Training Day‘s Oscar-nominated supporting actor Ethan Hawke, joined by Chris Pratt and the recently-announced Vincent D’Onofrio.
The movie hasn’t started filming yet, but Sony has already set their sights on a release date according to ERC Box Office, and the plan is to release it on MLK Jr. weekend, January 13, 2017.
This would have it being released on the same weekend as Denzel’s hit action-thriller The Book of Eli, directed by the Hughes Brothers, which opened with $38 million over the four-day holiday on its way to $94.8 million. It was one of Denzel’s biggest openings at the time, following Ridley Scott’s American Gangster, although he has gone on to have other similar hits with Safe House and last year’s Fuqua-directed The Equalizer, which grossed more than $100 million after opening in September.
Since only four male actors have been announced for the movie, we have to assume we’ll hear who will play the other three Magnificent 7 sometime before the movie starts shooting in Louisiana in mid-May.
The original 1960 movie, a remake itself of the Akira Kurosawa samurai film Seven Samurai, starred Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn and Eli Wallach.
