It seems like nowadays, anytime an action flick comes out where it’s one guy taking on a multi-headed threat, it always gets compared to Die Hard, and when it’s more than one guy taking on the bad guys, the comparisons immediately jump to The Magnificent Seven or that film’s inspiration, Seven Samurai. Admittedly, it mostly happens when there are actually seven people involved.
That’s exactly what’s happening with Relativity Media’s latest acquirement, a gritty thriller called Borderland, which is being developed as "a modern-day Western meets Magnificent Seven," Deadline reports. The film is being written by Sheldon Turner, whose screenplay for Up in the Air, co-written with Jason Reitman, gained him quite a few awards, as well as an Oscar nomination. (His work on 2006’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning wasn’t quite so well received.) There is the possibility that Turner will also direct the feature.
A newly elected mayor of a resort town recruits a big band of both former and current Special Forces operatives when cartel violence begins to overtake the border town. The operatives train the town’s citizens to retaliate, but the situation soon becomes too much for them to handle. The intention here is to depict the life of the post-war soldier in an accurate and authentic manner. Assuming this project steers widely from the missteps of Act of Valor and The Expendables, it could bring the ensemble action film back to its roots. It's also facing possible competition from a rumored Star Wars spinoff that also riffs on The Magnificent Seven, not to mention another remake
Turner will finish this script while he works towards his directorial debut with another script of his, Two Minutes to Midnight, and is also attached to direct By Virtue Fail, while his script for Everest will be a Doug Liman film starring Tom Hardy.
