Peter Sarsgaard to Play Villain in Antoine Fuqua’s Remake of Magnificent Seven. The director of Training Day (2001), Olympus Has Fallen (2013), and the upcoming Southpaw (2015) is at the helm of this fairly promising project. It doesn’t hurt that he’s in final negotiations to hire one of our best, most underrated actors, Peter Sarsgaard.
Sarsgaard will be joining quite a stellar cast, including Fuqua veteran Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, and Chris Pratt. As we all know, this will be a remake of the 1960 film starring Yul Brenner and Steve McQueen, which was in turn a remake of Akira Kurosawa‘s Seven Samurai (1954).
Sarsgaard has been an incredibly generous and reliable on-screen presence in the past. From Shattered Glass (of which there is still, sadly, no blu-ray) to Garden State, Jarhead, and Orphan, Sarsgaard usually delivers a memorable performance. It’s great to hear that we’ll get to see a more menacing, dark side of his personality that was so well hinted at in Jarhead.