MGM is moving forward with its long-planned remake of the 1960 classic Western The Magnificent Seven, with Denzel Washington and his Training Day director Antoine Fuqua in early talks to star and direct.

We first reported on the project back in August 2012, when Nic Pizzolatto signed on to write the script, long before his hit HBO series True Detective debuted. Tom Cruise was also attached to star at that time, but he dropped out of the remake in December, just as John Lee Hancock (Saving Mr. Banks, The Blind Side) came on board to rewrite the script.

The Magnificent Seven debuted in 1960, loosely inspired by Akira Kurosawa's 1954 classic Seven Samurai. The story follows seven gunslingers (Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter, James Coburn and Horst Buchholz) who are hired by a small Mexican village to help defend their homes from the villainous Calvera (Eli Wallach). No story details were given for this updated version.

Denzel Washington and Antoine Fuqua's next big-screen collaboration, The Equalizer, has already gotten so much buzz leading up to its late September release that Sony Pictures set up a sequel in February, with Richard Wenk writing the screenplay.