Rather than the original samurai, or the Old West spinoff, or a Superhero parody, let’s suppose some aggressive moviemaker outfit plans to produce a modern day version. They don’t have much but a basic idea.
Will it be a mob situation, a cops-and-robbers thing, some international intrigue scenario, a drug cartel? That’s where we come in. We help them with the ideas as well as the casting.
Who active today in TV and movies need to be selected for The 7?
Just some ideas to serve as a starting point:
Jason Statham
Johnny Depp
Daniel Criag
Matt Damon
Don Cheadle
Tim Olyphant
Aaron Paul
Go crazy!
Hollywood doesn’t have men like those anymore, that’s why Liam Neeson is experiencing an unlikely second career as an action hero at his age, because there are no credibly manly young actors - just pretty boys.
Just play like the world could handle it, who could even try? Have you seen The Tao of Steve (2000)? After seeing his work in Terriers I could get behind Logue in a Steve thing.
The basic story lends itself to retelling. The most obvious modern-take would be in Mexico; ruthless drug gangsters plan to make an example of a recalcitrant village by beheading every man and boy and hanging their bodies upside down from traffic lights, village hires seven mercenaries down on their luck with nothing left to lose in order to supervise the defence. Ends with a big gunfight in the rain.
Or - and this is never going to happen, but I’ve always thought it would make a good story - village in Afghanistan finds itself targeted by a resurgent Taliban, and hires a bunch of mercenaries and former servicemen who served in Afghanistan to help them. Ends with a big gunfight and the melancholy certainty that when the surviving mercenaries go home, the Taliban will return. Would be based around the detail that one of the villagers had kept in contact with a former serviceman via mobile phone, or a local internet cafe, 'cause I wouldn’t want the villagers to be a bunch of faceless nobodies.
That’s why the original idea of a band of roving bandits was clever. They could be vanquished once and for all, or at least until another bunch of bandits appeared. The problem with Zetas and the Taliban is that the victory would be hollow. Hollywood would probably gloss that over, mind. Same with a variation in Somalia involving pirates (which also raises the question as to why the mercenaries would even bother). A retelling on an oil tanker, with a group of mercenaries repelling pirates? Wouldn’t have the original’s mythic power.
Zombies? Problem is that the mercenaries have to be reluctant. It’s not their fight, the money’s no good, they can just walk out. Can’t do that with zombies, because there’s nowhere to go.
Since I have yet to see that one, all I can go by is the cast and what I will assume is a similar concept. It might be just the opposite in that since Seven Samurai was the first of the type that everything in that general vein has been at least an homage, if not a copy, of that paragon.
In that case, whatever we could come up with – unless we are very lucky and creative – will have the same flaw.
ETA: I realize that my history of cinema is weak and that there may be an even earlier template for this genre than Seven Samurai and would love to know of earlier examples.
