THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN

When director Antoine Fuqua was asked to remake the 1960 Steve McQueen Western The Magnificent Seven, “I said it needs to be something we haven’t seen — and more diverse,” he recalls. “I said Denzel should play the lead role.” That would be Denzel Washington, the star of Fuqua’s Training Day and The Equalizer. He portrays the head of a septet of gunmen protecting a town from deadly marauders, and his crew includes Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Lee Byung-hun. “Now it’s just not the white cowboy,” says Fuqua. “It’s white, black, Asian, Indians.… We all have to come together to fight tyranny.” Adds Chris, “These are seven men who do what they say they’re going do, and that’s rare nowadays. If something gets tough, people back out — and that’s not the mentality of the Magnificent Seven.” [PG-13]

“I’ve always wanted to do a Western,” says Chris. “And Denzel is a legend.” The original Seven