Antoine Fuqua Confirms He'll Direct Denzel Washington In MAGNIFICENT SEVEN Remake

Variety has word from director Antoine Fuqua, that he'll indeed direct Denzel Washington again in The Magnificent Seven remake. We've been hearing extremely positive things about the upcoming release of The Equalizer. Sony has already asked for sequels to be put into development. The original Magnificent Seven was already an American remake of the famous Akira Kurosawa classic The Seven Samurai.


SOURCE: VARIETY

THE EQUALIZER Franchise On The Way And Director Antoine Fuqua Comments On Sequels

The R-rated American action film is becoming a dying breed, we've seen franchises like Fast And Furious flourish within the PG-13 rating, tempting studios to water-down the genre. Which has led to The Expendables 3 wimping-out and scaling back the shoot-em-up gore to get a bigger box office. One voice in the genre has taken the attitude Hard-R is the way to go with these adult-action films. That is surprisingly Antoine Fuqua, who is better known for his crime thrillers such as Training Day and blew us away with his balls-to-the-wall action flick Olympus Has Fallen.

His next feature will see him re-teaming with his Oscar winner lead from Training Day, Denzel Washington. The film based on the widely popular series The Equalizer, sees Washington as a total badass only interested in levelling the playing field. The studio doesn't have a bunch of original action franchises lying around to fill release spots. They also have to try to develop whatever existing properties they have to their fullest potential, so it makes sense that they would want this to be very successful and make more installments.

Back in February, TheWrap reported that Sony is indeed moving forward with a sequel. They had rehired screenwriter Richard Wenk (Expendables 2, The Mechanic) to pen the script. Wenk wrote the first installment and has apparently closed a deal to write it's second installment with the working title The Equalizer 2. They add that test-screenings have earned the highest scores for an R-rated film for the studio. This basically should give the impression Sony could have a massive hit on their hands, and will actually be worth franchising.

Director Antoine Fuqua actually took on that question head-on with ScreenRant, and gave a hopeful but coy response to the talk the studio wants more installments.

Ah, you know, I would be lying to you if I said I wouldn’t love for it to become a franchise, I would love for it to become a hit and all that great stuff. Who knows-you just make the best movie you can make, you know it’s like, eat the whole thing, one piece at a time. And then, we’ll see what happens, I would love for it to be.

I'm a massive fan of both the work of Washington and director Antoine Fuqua, so I'm totally on board for this. The only thing is that Fuqua has setup franchises before and left, case-in-point he didn't return to direct London Has Fallen the sequel to Olympus Has Fallen. I believe the deciding factor will be what the studio will offer Fuqua via future projects, and if Denzel is willing to stick around. The trailer is extremely promising, and it's hard to not to want to see that Training Day magic return.

SOURCE: SCREENRANT

Antoine Fuqua Could Re-Team With Denzel Washington For THE EQUALIZER

Deadline reports that Antoine Fuqua is in talks to replace Nicolas Winding Refn as the director of Sony's The Equalizer. The action thriller is a possible franchise for Denzel Washington who is coming off an Oscar nomination for Flight. Fuqua directed Training Day which led to Washington's Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Antonie Fuqua's Boxing Pic SOUTHPAW Resurrected With Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper And Jeremy Renner In The Mix

ShadowAndAct spoke to director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Olympus Has Fallen) about his recently resurrected boxing drama Southpaw written by Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter. The MGM/Sony project was picked up by The Weinstien Company, who seem to be aiming to put some serious acting talent behind it. At one point Eminem (8 Mile) was attached to star but it seems like the studio is looking at bigger names. Fuqua mentions that he's spoken to actors such as Bradley Cooper, Ryan Gosling and Jeremy Renner for the film. It could be a possible Oscar vehicle for it's cast and director.

New Poster For OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN

New International And Domestic Posters For OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN

Trailer For Antoine Fuqua's OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN Starring Gerard Butler

New Poster For OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN

Antoine Fuqua Offered 'OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN' Starring Gerard Butler

HeatVision says that Nu Image/Millennium Films is looking to offer the Olympus Has Fallen director's chair to Antoine Fuqua. Olympus is being compared to Die Hard set in the White House and has Gerard Butler attached to star. The action veteran director is best known for films like Training Day, Brooklyn's Finest, Shooter, The Replacement Killers, King Arthur and Tears of The Sun.

Another White House set action film White House down is making the rounds at Sony so it looks like Nu Image/Millennium is eager to get their project into production first. Fuqua has aligned himself with many projects in last year or so, it could end up he doesn't take the offer.

8 Directors In The Running For The Wolverine

ShowBlitz is reporting that 20th Century Fox is circling eight directors for The Wolverine. It originally had Darren Aronofsky set to direct with a script by Christopher McQuarrie. The directors include Jose Padilha (Elite Squad 1-2, Robocop), Doug Liman (Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, All You Need Is Kill), Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Brooklyn's Finest), Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo, Never Let Me Go), Justin Lin (Fast Five, Highlander, Terminator 5), Gavin O’Connor (Warrior), James Mangold (Cop Land, Knight & Day, 3:10 To Yuma, Walk The Line) and Gary Shore.

My favorites of this group includes Mark Romanek, Jose Padilha, Gavin O'Connor, James Mangold and Antoine Fuqua. The likes of Lin and Liman sort of worries me as these two aren't strong visually and aren't as well liked as some of the other candidates. Even more so when compared to the likes of Aronofsky and the rumored Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code). I'd love to see Romanek take on a big genre film as he was originally set to make The Wolf Man before walking and forcing Universal to rush the project.

Gerard Butler & Antoine Fuqua In Talks For Afterburn

Deadline reports director Antoine Fuqua (Brooklyn's Finest, Training Day) and Gerard Butler are in talks with Relavity Media for an adaptation of the comic book film Afterburn. The project which is being produced by Tobey Maguire has been scripted by Matt Johnson (Into The Blue) with rewrites from Christian Gudegast (A Man Apart).

The scifi saga takes place a year after a solar flare burns half the surface of a planet, and treasure hunters return to Earth to retrieve what's left of value. I love the thought of mixing a dystopian future, off-world colonization and treasure hunting elements into one action film.

Bruce Willis & Antoine Fuqua In Talks For The Tomb

Deadline reports that director Antoine Fuqua and Bruce Willis are in talks to work on the upcoming prison thriller The Tomb. I'm a big fan of Antoine Fuqua's films they always have great casts and excellent cinematography. I enjoy his crime-based films like The Replacement Killers, Training Day and Brooklyn's Finest. So a prison film sounds like it could fit perfectly with the director's style. I'm glad to see Bruce Willis banging out all these action roles before can't do them anymore. He's already lined up action films such as Red, Looper, Kane & Lynch and Die Hard 5. I think I could handle seeing Bruce doing these type of films well into his 70's similar to Sean Connery.


"Willis is in talks to play Ray Breslin, the world’s foremost authority on structural security. After analyzing every high security prison and learning a vast array of survival skills so he can design escape-proof prisons, his skills are put to the test. He's framed and incarcerated in a master prison he designed himself. He needs to escape and find the person who put him behind bars."