Antoine Fuqua

Depending on your point of view, today’s good news / bad news situation might be a good news / good news type of thing — Antoine Fuqua has dropped out of the long-developing Scarface remake, and though the director’s chair is now vacant, the project does have a very talented actor to lead it: Diego Luna, who most recently co-starred in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

I liked The Equalizer. I liked it more than The Magnificent Seven, which director Antoine Fuqua and star Denzel Washington made after The Equalizer (and is out in theaters today, read our review, plug plug plug plug plug). The Equalizer, loosely based on the TV show of the same name, was a very confident and occasionally very amusing action thriller that was fully self-aware. It’s basically a perfect basic cable movie; you pop in, you watch Denzel beat a room full of guys without breaking a sweat, and then you brush your tweet and go to bed. And the ending, where it basically becomes Home Alone in a Home Depot (they should have called the movie Home Depot Alone, that was a missed opportunity) was tremendous.

Peter Sarsgaard often plays guys you can’t help but hate. From his ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ character to his ‘An Education’ con man to his Chuck Traynor in ‘Lovelace,’ Sarsagaard has mastered playing seedy jerks who pray on the weaknesses of others. In Antoine Fuqua’s ‘The Magnificent Seven,’ Sarsgaard takes on the role of the bad guy once more.

You may not know Haley Bennett’s name yet, but by the end of the fall movie season you’ll certainly recognize her. The 28-year-old actress, who’s appeared in ‘Hardcore Henry’ and ‘The Equalizer,’ has been acting for almost a decade, but its her trio of upcoming films this year that are bound to put her on your radar.

Awards season may be underway with the official start of the Toronto Film Festival, but the fall of 2016 picks up right where summer left off with Antoine Fuqua’s ‘The Magnificent Seven,’ a loud and frenetic update of an old classic very few people were clamoring for. The question with any remake is why; why a new version and why one now? The movie just made its world premiere as the opening night film of TIFF 2016, and I still don’t have a satisfying answer to that question.

The Magnificent Seven hits theaters next month, but Antoine Fuqua is already eyeing another remake of a beloved classic. The director is reportedly in talks to helm a new remake of Brian De Palma’s 1983 film Scarface, which — like Magnificent Seven — was itself a remake of an earlier film. Remakes of remakes of remakes: It’s the wave of the future.

The bounty hunter, the gambler., the outlaw, the sharpshooter, the assassin, the warrior, and the tracker. Seven (a magnificent seven, if you will) against an army. And the army’s led by Peter Sarsgaard! I don’t like those odds.

We’ve seen Sylvester Stallone flirt with TV before, usually in producing, but now Rocky himself may take the leap fulltime. The legendary star has signed on as the lead of Antoine Fuqua’s unattached mafia series Omerta, based on the final novel in Godfather creator Mario Puzo’s mob trilogy.

Most successful movie to TV adaptations have some foot in the original creative pool, and CBS’ upcoming Training Day series followed the trend with director Antoine Fuqua, and possibly Ethan Hawke. Sadly, Fuqua has relinquished his role as director of the pilot outing, while negotiations with Hawke fell through, but why? Is Training Day already in trouble?

Crowded TV landscape as it is, no one was terribly surprised to hear Training Day had been added to the list of TV’s many movie properties, albeit with the benefit of director Antoine Fuqua aboard. Now, we’ve learned Ethan Hawke may have in mind to reprise his role from the 2001 film as well, though the level of involvement may change in development.