When last we reported on MGM's remake of The Magnificent Seven, screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto (True Detective) was working on the script and Tom Cruise (Jack Reacher) was attached to star.  What a difference a year makes.  Cruise has reportedly left the project, which is just one of a laundry list of remakes in development by the rejuvenated studio.  All is not lost with Cruise's departure, however, as writer-director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side) has come onto the project to rewrite Pizzolatto's script.  Hit the jump for more.

The Wrap reports

both that Cruise has left The Magnificent Seven remake and that Hancock has come on board to pen a new draft of the script.  Hancock's other screenwriting work includes Snow White and the Huntsman and the upcoming Disney film, Maleficent.  Disney also gave Hancock the reins in directing the studio's Mary Poppins picture, Saving Mr. Banks.  There's no mention as to whether or not Hancock would be up for directing MGM's remake of The Magnificent Seven.

The original 1960 Western, based on Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 classic Seven Samurai, starred Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter and Horst Buchholz as the title characters.  Playing a ragtag assemblage of American gunslingers, the seven were hired to protect a poor Mexican village from a group of savage bandits led by Calvera (Eli Wallach).  The Oscar-nominated picture went on to inspire three movie sequels and a television series that ran from 1998 to 2000.  The film was recently selected for preservation at the United States National Film Registry.