Movies With Butter

According to Variety, Tom Cruise wants to saddle up for MGM's remake of John Sturges' western The Magnificent Seven, which is itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film Seven Samurai. The movie still has a long way to go before we can see it in theaters because MGM has only begun to look for a writer to retool the 1960 movie for today's audience.

While Cruise is interested in the remake, it's too far out to be in Cruise's "immediate plans," according to the trade's sources. Translation: if Cruise isn't wowed by the script or if he has better things to do, he's out.

Cruise has a previous relationship with MGM, having ran the United Artist joint-venture with his production partner Paula Wagner and the studio.

Since its emergence from bankruptcy back in 2010, MGM has largely halted production of its own films and is mostly involved in co-financing deals with other studios as a way to lower their exposure to risk and to build up its war chest.

Some of the movies MGM co-financed are: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunter, 21 Jump Street, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the two Hobbit movies, Skyfall, and G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

As for its own production slate, MGM's plan is to remake some of it's own movies. The Robocop and Carrie remakes are ready to go before the camera soon. The other remakes in the plans are Mr. Mom, The Idolmakers, and, now, The Magnificent Seven.

MGM is also planning a fourth Poltergeist movie that Sam Raimi is producing.

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