By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
TORONTO (AP) --The 41st Toronto International Film Festival got underway Thursday with Antoine Fuqua's remake of "The Magnificent Seven," an old-school Western with more modern faces.
The film's Thursday night premiere kicked off North America's largest film festival, which is set to unspool some 300 films over the next 10 days. On tap are premieres of many of the fall's top films, including the Los Angeles musical "La La Land," the oil rig explosion docudrama "Deepwater Horizon" and Oliver Stone's "Snowden."
"The Magnificent Seven," starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt, is a remake of the John Sturges' 1960 Western, which itself was a remake of Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai." For Fuqua, who grew up loving Westerns, it was important for him to cast a diverse group of actors to welcome moviegoers to a genre not known for inclusiveness.
"For me, being black, I didn't see anyone that really looked like me," Fuqua said in an interview. "But I still loved the Westerns because as a kid, I wasn't identifying color. I was just identifying my heroes, John Wayne and those guys."
In Fuqua's "Magnificent Seven," the hero is unquestionably Washington, who plays a fearsome black-clad bounty hunter. It's the actor's first Western, and if nothing else, "The Magnificent Seven" unites one of today's true movie stars with Hollywood's most iconic, if somewhat out of favor, genres.
"I had a vision of him on that horse," said Fuqua, whose "Training Day" and "The Equalizer" starred Washington. "That's what made it fun for me. Right away, when we were talking about the different cast members, I said, 'You know, I'd love to see Denzel on a horse.' Everybody in the room got quiet. They said, 'Do you think he'll do it?' I said, 'Well, I'll fly to New York and find out.'"
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Washington said he never saw Sturges' film, but he did watch "Seven Samurai." ''I didn't know how it would help me," said Washington. "It allowed me to do whatever I wanted to do instead of trying to not do what maybe somebody else did."
For Fuqua, watching the Western morph over time, particularly with Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns, was what most enthralled him: "I fell in love with them watching them change."
He hopes his film – which also stars Ethan Hawke, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Vincent D'Onofrio – helps open up the genre to others, and more accurately reflects the diversity of the Old West.
"People say, 'Oh, Westerns are hard to sell.' Well, they're hard to sell if everybody in the Western looks one way," says Fuqua. "You're not going to get the Asian market excited about it if all the Chinese guy does is work on the railroad. And I won't get black people go see it if all it is is the slaves. Even white people get tired of seeing the same guy over and over as well. Everyone wants something to make it fresh. It's a great genre and I thought it was dying for no good reason."
"I hoping if this is successful, we'll get to see more Westerns – more diverse and interesting Westerns," he said.
(Fuqua is handled by production house Wondros for spots and branded content.)
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More