Vincent D’Onofrio may lasso ‘Magnificent Seven’ villain role

Vincent D’Onofrio could be headed toward a showdown at high noon with Denzel Washington and his posse.

The longtime “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” player is in talks to portray the villain in Sony Pictures and MGM’s “Magnificent Seven” remake, The Times has confirmed.

D’Onofrio would star opposite Washington, Chris Pratt and Ethan Hawke in the Antoine Fuqua-directed film. Variety first reported the news.

The story of a ragtag group of gunslingers hired to defend a town from bandits, “Magnificent Seven” is based on John Sturges’ 1960 western starring Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson. That film was also based on an earlier film -- Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai.”

The most recent draft of the new film was written by John Lee Hancock (“The Blind Side”); Nic Pizzolatto (“True Detective”) previously worked on the script.

“Law & Order” aside, D’Onofrio is a veteran screen villain whose bad-guy roles include a serial killer in “The Cell,” an insectoid alien masquerading as a human in “Men in Black,” the Kingpin in Netflix’s “Daredevil” series and the (presumably shady) security expert in “Jurassic World.”

“Magnificent Seven” is expected to begin production within the next month.

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