EXCLUSIVE: Chris Pratt is in early talks to join Denzel Washington in Magnificent Seven, the MGM remake that will be directed by Antoine Fuqua. Landing the Guardians Of The Galaxy star further bolsters what is shaping up to be a terrific package on the remake of the 1960 John Sturges-directed film. The talks are early stage, and this would be the first of the six other guys to round out the cast in the story of a town that assembles a squad of seven elite gunmen to protect it. Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson were part of the ensemble cast of the original, which was released by United Artists and is a library title for MGM. Pratt’s character isn’t specifically modeled after those originals, but his character name is Farraday.

The revived studio has coveted a remake for some time, originally developing a version for Tom Cruise. Nic Pizzolatto, who went on to write and exec produce HBO’s True Detective, wrote a draft and John Lee Hancock came on to rewrite a movie whose inspiration was Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. The setting is post-Civil War, right at the end of the Wild West. Roger Birnbaum is producing it.

For MGM, this joins the Bond 24 film, whose Spectre title and cast was revealed today the Ryan Coogler-directed Rocky spinoff Creed with Michael B. Jordan; and Ben-Hur as major pictures that will go into production by the first quarter of 2015. Pratt is repped by CAA.