Director Antoine Fuqua has mostly been rounding up people to play the gunslingers who agree to help a town in The Magnificent Seven, but he's slowly turning to the villains. He now has Jason Momoa in talks to play a heavy in his Western remake{
Assuming he makes a final deal, Momoa will be one of the toughs backing up the primary big bad, a robber baron that targets a small town perched near a gold mine. When the villains kill several people in their attempt to take the place over, a young widow (Haley Bennett) hires a bounty hunter (Denzel Washington) to dispatch the bad guys, supplying him with the necessary funds to hire six gunmen to help him in his mission. Which is where Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Luke Grimes, Wagner Moura and Vincent D’Onofrio and others come into play. In related casting news, Deadline brings word that G.I. Joe** veteran Byung-hun Lee is also aboard.
John Lee Hancock and True Detective’s Nic Pizzolatto are among those who have contributed to the screenplay, adapted from the classic Seven Samurai, which became the first crack at a Magnificent Seven in 1960. Fuqua’s version recently locked in a January 2017 release across the pond and in the UK. He’s scheduled to start the bullets flying later this month once the rest of the ensemble has been cast.
Momoa will be more on the side of justice – literally – when he plays Aquaman in Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, which is out here on March 25 next year.