Peter Sarsgaard to torment Denzel Washington’s ‘Magnificent Seven’

Peter Sarsgaard may want to get fitted for his black hat. The actor is in final negotiations to play the lead villain in Sony and MGM’s “Magnificent Seven,” The Times has confirmed.

Sarsgaard, 44, would play a robber baron calling the shots in director Antoine Fuqua’s remake of the 1960 Western about a band of gunslingers hired to protect an oppressed town from outlaws. Variety first reported the news.

Whereas the original “Magnificent Seven” — itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” — starred Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson, Fuqua’s version would pit Sarsgaard and his henchmen against Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt and Ethan Hawke, among others.

Alas, Sarsgaard’s presumptive bad guy won’t have the help of Jason Momoa (HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” Warner Bros’. upcoming “Aquaman”), who is no longer in talks to co-star in the movie.

Sarsgaard, a chameleonic and prolific actor whose credits include “An Education,” “Shattered Glass” and “Boys Don’t Cry,” has been maintaining a steady pace lately. He appeared in “Pawn Sacrifice” at Toronto in September and “Experimenter” at Sundance in January, and he’ll also be seen opposite Johnny Depp in the crime thriller “Black Mass” in the fall.

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