Thanks to our great friends at IMAX and Sony, a few days ago we hosted a free screening of director Antoine Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven bat IMAX headquarters before it was in theaters, with a post-screening Q&A with producer Todd Black. While Los Angeles is home to a number of great IMAX theaters, I especially love being able to show movies at their headquarters because of its intimate setting for Q&As and the fact that it’s generally not open to the public. However, since we always have more people asking for tickets than seats and a huge percentage of our readers don’t live in Los Angeles, we always tape our Q&As for people to watch either live or online later. And thanks to IMAX, below you can watch our post-screening Q&A with Todd Black.

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During the wide-ranging conversation, Black talks about how he first started working with Denzel Washington, the challenges of getting Magnificent Seven to movie screens, the film's limited use of CGI, the way late composer James Horner helped the project and his themes, what they learned from test screenings, if the eventual Blu-ray will have an “extended cut”, the status of The Equalizer 2, and a lot more. Here’s the video followed by a time index of what we talked about.

Finally, before getting to the video, again I want to say thank you to Sony and IMAX for making this screening happen.

Note: the video starts sideways but will look normal pretty fast.

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Image via Sony

Todd Black:

  • 2:55 - Casting, talking about getting Washington, Pratt, etc.
  • 5:55 - What did he learn from the test screening process/friends and family screenings that impacted the finished cut.
  • 7:00 - Is this going to be one of these movies that on the DVD/Blu-ray release there is going to be an "extended cut"?
  • 8:00 - Discussing the challenges of making a western.
  • 9:22 - How many days did they shoot?
  • 11:10 - Equalizer 2 details.
  • 12:18 - Todd discussing his friendship with Denzel; When did he first meet him?
  • 15:13 - How long did it take to get the green light on the film?
  • 17:00 - Explaining the seven themes James Horner wrote for the film.
  • 19:45 - Why is now the right time for the remake of this film?
  • 23:51 – Talks about the limited use of CGI in the film.
  • 25:37 - What is the procedure like when remaking a classic?
  • 31:00 - Were there conversations between Antoine and IMAX about shooting some of it in IMAX?
  • 33:00 - After Equalizer 2 is there any chance of something like Equalizer versus John Wick?
  • 34:23 – What’s his favorite Denzel film?
  • 38:03 – Does he have a bucket list of films that he wants to be made?
  • 42:02 - Talks about the sound design team and working with the IMAX sound team.

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