
UPDATE, 3:20 pm ET: Now, according to Hollywood Reporter, Snyder’s reps are denying the report.
Snyder’s spokesperson says: “While he is super flattered because he is a huge fan, Zack is not involved in any way with the new Star Wars. He is currently in post on his two films, Man of Steel and 300: Battle of Artemisia.”
So no Star Wars for Snyder, let alone a Seven Samurai Star Wars. That’s good to hear, though I want that five minutes of my life back. But hey, here’s a corgi puppy playing with a stuffed monkey.
Phew, for a second there, I felt like I had gone five minutes without hearing about Star Wars or Kurosawa. I TOUCHED THE VOID, MAN! IT WAS LIKE A CRUSHED VELVET PLATYPUS VAGINA! Thank goodness Vulture was there to break this story about a Zack Snyder Star Wars movie based on Seven Samurai and put things right again. That was close.
He is in fact developing a Star Wars project for Lucasfilm that is set within the series’ galaxy, though parallel to the next trilogy. It will be an as-yet-untitled Jedi epic loosely based on Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 classic Seven Samurai, with the ronin and katana being replaced by the Force-wielding knights and their iconic lightsabers.
It’s not clear just where Snyder’s untitled Jedi film would fall within the Star Wars chronology, but one insider expects it will not be considered part of the “numbered” episodes, but rather a stand-alone film set sometime post–Episode VI events, meaning the next phase of the franchise development is much broader than previously thought. For those unfamiliar, Kurosawa’s influential Seven Samurai (The Magnificent Seven was the American remake) tells the tale of a small agrarian town in sixteenth-century Japan that’s routinely pillaged by bandits. Fed up with the annual shakedown, its farmers retain the services of seven masterless samurai to defend their harvest. One of the film’s stars, Toshiro Mifune, was initially offered the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi (as Kotaku recounts here). [Vulture]
Combining Star Wars and Seven Samurai is taking the two cultural products that have been digested and sh*t back out into the cultural zeitgeist more often than almost anything else into one giant, digested-sh*t snowball and then throwing it at us (btw, have you ever put a dog turd inside a snowball? A+ prank). As ToplessRobot points out, someone even already did a Star Wars take on Seven Samurai back in 1980, called Battle Beyond the Stars:
Meanwhile, Rifftrax has a forum topic on the number of different movies based on Seven Samurai. That this by no means a complete list should give you an idea of how many there are:
Shichinin no Samurai (Seven Samurai) 1954
The Magnificent Seven (most famous remake) 1960 —> (sequels) Return of the Seven 1966, Guns of the Magnificent Seven 1969, The Magnificent Seven Ride! 1972,
Liu he qian shou (Return of the Scorpion; kung fu remake of SS) 1979
Battle Beyond the Stars (Star Wars style remake of Magnificent Seven) 1980
I Sette Magnifici Gladiatori (The Seven Magnificent Gladiators; sword and sandal remake starring Lou Ferrigno) 1983
Dune Warriors (post apocalyptic remake starring David Carradine) 1990
Dikiy Vostok (The Wild East; remake featuring dwarves being attacked by bikers in post-Soviet Asia, produced by Kazakhstan [not Uzbekistan assholes, high five!]) 1993
“The Magnificent Seven” (TV series) 1998-2000
Samurai 7 (a terrible [imo] futurized anime version that airs on Showtime, only spawning to be aproved by the Kurosawa estate) 2005
Two boring tastes that go great together! However, I’ll change my mind if Robert Downey Jr. plays all the characters as racist, Mickey Rooney-esque caricatures in the Asian-face make up from Cloud Atlas.

Or, hopefully it will just be two hours of guys shouting “F*ck you!” and “Suck my dick!” like Bobby Hacker’s Star Wars movie.



I could see how this would come after episode III since the remaining Jedi would be keeping a low profile and have nothing else to do. It might even be good.
The asshole from Film 101 that just hit his Kurosawa phase is spraying all over the place right now.
So really, to make your point about how overused The Seven Samuri idea is, you had to pull up 8 different non-US straight-to-beta projects that no one has ever heard of, besides a few USC Film School rejects and a couple of fat neckbearded anime dorks?
As badly over used as Star Wars has become, Disney churns out amazing shit over and over and people keep lapping it up. Aren’t we on Toy Story 15 now, and every movie blog just straight up masturbates to the sound of Tom Hank’s earnest voiceover work.
If you’re going to criticize overused, corny bullshit, criticize all corny bullshit.
I could’ve just mentioned the original Star Wars itself. You honestly think Seven Samurai isn’t overused as a reference point? And I think I try to criticize all overused, corny bullshit, especially as it relates to Disney.
It’s not that I don’t think it’s overused. It is – but I still like it so I will pay money to get in line and see this like a chump – and I’ll like it!!!
But those references were a bit… obscure, at least to the layperson.
As for criticizing corny bullshit, last week we were all criticizing tedious, arty Oscar Bullshit. Yet meld the two together (Corny and Tedious/arty) and what do you get?
Everything Wes Anderson has ever made. BOOM!
How many people have actually seen “Seven Samurai?” I bet not that many. I bet people will think they are ripping off “The Magnificent Seven.” I bet not even that many people under twenty-five have even seen that movie. And everything has already been done before anyway.
The original Star Wars itself is based heavily on Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, so by going back to AK’s influence kind of turns Lucas into a one-man human centipede.
Good luck with *that* image. /scrubs mind’s eye with Brillo pad
I 100% think that Seven Samurai is not an overused reference point. At any rate, it’s not even in the same universe as Star Wars in that regard. I agree with Eddie Baby, I don’t even think many people have seen it.
What the fuck did I just watch?
Battle Beyond the Stars. Ouch. I remember picking that out as a kid from the video store and being totally confused. Now as an adult I’m still totally confused.
I love it when a processed meat product comes together.
My ex once pointed out to me that it’s weird that the Jedi are so samurai-ish and have faux Asian names but it’s mostly white dudes and Samuel L. Jackson and aliens, and now I can’t unsee it.
Either way, we’re in for a whole lot of slow motion lightsaber-ing.
Lucas originally wanted Toshiro Mifune (who, of course, was in Seven Samurai and many Kurosawa films) to play Kenobi. Too bad for him that Mifune didn’t speak English.
That didn’t stop him from showing up in “Midway.”
Let’s not forget, Space Jam is spawn from the Seven Samurai as well.
I heard there was more than one episode of Friends that borrowed liberally form Kurosawa.
Like Kurosawa I make mad films, ok I don’t make films, but if I did they’d have midichlorians.
Little bit of Canadian pop to wash this news down.
This is legitimately how I discovered who Kurosawa is. Same with Sailor Moon.
Snyder needs to have a Corgi Yoda leading Michael Cera through a gangnam-style jedi training session so that the internet can fully rejoice and finally shut the fuck about these things.
A Bug’s Life is also the Seven Samurai story.
Let’s not forget The Three Amigos!
I think everyone is ignoring the biggest problem here. There was a movie about circus dwarves being attacked by bikers in post-Soviet Union wilderness, AND I CAN’T FIND IT ANYWHERE TO WATCH!
It’s not circus dwarves, but Six String Samurai is surprisingly close
AND…this has already be recounted by Snyder. Well done, internet! Baseless claims with little to no fact! Huzzah!
It can’t be worse than Sucker Punch, that was like a Maxim in movie form. Like a bad handjob that never ends.
This is probably the most spot on summary of Sucker Punch. Well done
And the Seven Samurai was just a rip-off of Snow White.
I was going to give Snyder a the thumbs up for “Legend of the Guardians” but then I remembered that was just Star Wars with giant battle owls with bitchin’ armor and Austrailian accents. I will go day one to see it if it has those same owls with lightsabers though.
The only movie I want to see Star Wars based off of is Bad Lieutenant. I wanna see then redo Darth Vader’s origin story where he starts doing space heroin, bangs space hookers, robs Sith drug dealers. You know. Weekday shit.
This is correct.
I like how literally nothing happened in the time it took to explore this story and then refute it. It’s like making your friend drive you to the hospital because your wife is in labor and then realizing you were never married. It’s the Fight Club of movie news stories. Like watching a mime give a handjob and thinking it’s a thing that is actually happening. I’m really drunk.
I really enjoyed the corgi video, though. All is well.